[Update]
Basically I resolved my sudo -s issue by
creating a new file: /etc/sudoers.d/01_env_keep
with the following contents:
Defaults env_keep -= “HOME”
and then chmod 440 /etc/sudoers.d/01_env_keep
and then confirming with sudo sudo -V
But the bug in question is still relevant and two other reports confirm as indicated in the original post’s first link.