It is obvious that someone at CNN gave their out of work brother this web design gig. Where to start?

Information Overload
- There's too many articles being displayed at the same time

Bad Flow of information
- The flow of data went from "left-to-right" to "center-to-left-to-up-to-somewhere-else"

Difficult to read
- The font is too small (I have 20/15 vision but don't like reading microfont)

Oh yeah...you wanted the workaround. Instead of going to cnn.com, use the mobile version that opens up much faster: m.cnn.com. It will get you by until you find a better website. FauxNews.com blows and USATODAY.com isn't much better.

The old CNN.com will be missed.