Does it still happen in Troubleshoot Mode?

YES. Everything else in my fav bar loads almost instantaneously.

Does it still happen in a new profile? An easy way to test a new profile is to install Developer Edition and see if it happens there or refresh your existing profile.

I deleted and re-installed, refreshed, begged, cajoled and threatened, but it makes no difference. I thought it was an ad blocker at first, but Yahoo and the others load.

Try changing DNS over HTTPS to "Off" or "Increased Protection" and in Connection Settings change "Use system proxy settings" to "No proxy".

I downloaded that Developer Edition, but it would not install. Got a message that said my NordVPN was preventing the installation. I have NordVPN, but was not using it. Most of the time it slows things down so much I don't use it. So I forwarded that Screen Print to Nord. They may respond next year.