Next Day: this is happening across stackexchange and is a bug, see
"Newest Questions" tab showing last active user instead of the asker
In case it matters: I'm on a desktop, running Linux, I use browsers Firefox and Chrome. Appears to me same behavior for both browsers.
I guess I can post screenshots. Until a few days ago, when I chose to look at the questions on Main under the "Newest" order, it would show them in the order asked, and the lower right corner would show the time "asked."
I noticed yesterday, it is now mingling in questions showing when and who "modified," indeed one "answered." So this is closer to the way the "Active" order had worked. Now the Active order does some other thing.
Note, 12:25 Pacific: it is possible that "Newest" is still showing the questions strictly by time asked, but then putting information by most recent modification.
This first image is the screen capture from the global Meta post:
