Just to play both sides here, on pixel there is a news feed if you swipe the home screen right. It is now infused with ai summaries rather than the first few lines of the story with no way to go back.

Course, I can switch to a different launcher, but it makes it much less of a "batteries included" sort of product.

There is a setting to disable this. Long press on your home screen background > Home Settings > Toggle "Swipe to access Google app"