Thank you BlackBird71! From XB-70 (Valkyrie).

Bingo! My bad for not thinking of that, especially given the extensions: the culprit was Block Image Video, version 0.1.0 by Alex Marcoo, which I had intended to block display of images and video (those pesky downloads of videos and ads, which I don't ever want). Opera Ad Blocker was fine, as was Disable HTML5 Autoplay
Version 0.6.2 by eloston
Trying to blame Opera--so poor on my part.

Vanguard.com no longer works well with Opera. Many pages do not load, rather a grey page opens (blank) when various other things are expected. This started back at v. 59 something, and continues into the latest v. 60.0.3255.27 I have not contacted Vanguard.com as they will likely tell me that they do not support Opera, whether Chromium based or not. Still works on IE (my other browser). Do I have to abandon Opera now and finally install Chrome? I do not know if other Opera users also use Vanguard.com, but if so, please weigh in. Thank you.

@duncanm Thanks duncanm. Will look for a fix.

Yes, I get it on Google News. Annoying. Looked for some new setting, but couldn't find anything. Opera/Google News bug. Not the first. Google wants us to switch to Chrome? (I know, paranoia.)

I am looking for a new news aggregator. I see that there are already numerous suggestions to improve Opera News that would create features similar to Google News, like subject categories to sort articles into (World, US, Business, Sports, Tech, specialty topics, etc. For myself, I put them into those categories, in that order of display, FWIW.) Also I see that folks are complaining that unlike Google News, you cannot block undesired sources. If Opera would like to supplant the now degraded Google News, have a look at it, or if possible the previous version, before June 27th, 2017, which doesn't have all the dumbing down, whitespace, "In the News," "Fact Check," "Spotlight," "Sections" which has to be shut, instead of opened, less articles and yet more white space! I have looked at News360, Flipboard, Feedly, Apple News, Digg, etc. Even degraded as it is--why don't they allow a legacy option?--none is as good as Google News, to me. Google News does keep trying to add new sources, most of which I block, but one has the impression that they are casting a fairly wide net.

I see that there are already numerous suggestions to improve Opera News that would create features similar to Google News, like subject categories to sort articles into (World, US, Business, Sports, Tech, specialty topics, etc. For myself, I put them into those categories, in that order of display, FWIW.) Also I see that folks are complaining that unlike Google News, you cannot block undesired sources. If you really would like to supplant the now degraded Google News, have a look at it, or if possible the previous version, before June 27th, 2017, which doesn't have all the dumbing down, whitespace, "In the News," "Fact Check," "Spotlight," "Sections" which has to be shut, instead of opened, less articles and more white space! I have looked at News360, Flipboard, Feedly, Apple News, Digg, etc. Even degraded as it is--why don't they allow a legacy option?--none is as good as Google News, to me. Google News does keep trying to add new sources, most of which I block, but one has the impression that they are casting a fairly wide net.

I am not an advanced user, but unless Opera is getting revenue from the Messengers that it carries, or adding Signal is somehow otherwise infeasible, look into it. Would go with the free VPN service--in theme. (I know, WhatsApp is encrypted, but not as well. I don't use it.)

Here is a description of the built-in solution in Settings > Privacy & Security > [check box] Protect me from malicious sites

http://www.opera.com/help/tutorials/security/fraud/

Doesn't mention which of the various blacklists are consulted by Opera, or if any 3rd party analysis is performed--some of the checkers mentions in my initial post, supposedly do live analysis, other than checking blacklists.

I still believe that allowing or encouraging extensions which can label links (search results, news links, any links) as safe, warning, or bad (usually green, yellow, red), would be nice. The many apps which do this--see my initial post--don't work on Opera, except for Avira Browser Safety.

leocg--
Yes, if you are aware of this built-in 3rd party solution protecting users from malicious sites, please advise, or direct me to an appropriate link at Opera.
FWIW, there is one such website safety/reputation checker which I have been able to install: Avira Browser Safety, which is free. It will mark search results (although I have yet to see a yellow or a red), and advise on the site which one has opened (same, all green so far). The idea is that before clicking on a link, the extension marks it (typically green for safe, yellow for caution, and red for unsafe), as per safety analyses and/or reputation (WOT used crowd sourcing--other data bases may be compiled by other means). Too bad WOT turned out to be rouge. Oddly it still seems to be operating--people don't care or are that unaware?