Then what is?

Although it is the UK government making the decision, this only covers England. The devolved administrations (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) will no-doubt make their own decisions on the matter. I very much doubt the current Scottish administration will diverge from the directive as the SNP/Green administration want to keep in sync with the EU regulations as far as possible. Not only that, the Green part of the coalition are unlikely to agree any (seemingly) weakening of any environmental regulations, whether in sync with the EU's regulations or not.

Wikipedia possibly

Wikipedia will not perform Online Safety Bill age checks

It will eventually cost money, but then as with any commercial product you don't have to use it. There is currently a free Rust plugin for IntelliJ (to be deprecated, but will remain free and open source). There may also be a rust plugin for Eclipse (which is another alternative. I haven't looked into this). There is always vim if you want free!

As to being a cash cow, in my experience IntelliJ is the most used IDE (for Java certainly) in the commercial environment, probably as it is one of the best! And the reason it is one of the best may be due to the fact that JetBrains can afford to pay dedicated developers. (As a Software Developer myself, I can appreciate being paid for what I do!)

I will hopefully get RustRover included in my All Products Pack subscription, which I pay for. I'm happy to pay for this as I consider it an investment in my career (in the same way I consider the books I purchase an investment in my career). If you don't need to invest in your career, then by all means wait for the free alternatives, but don't begrudge those who produce (or purchase) the commercial products.

Also from the website:

Looks like those of us who purchase the All Products Pack will get this included.

GNU Hurd?

The Reuters article linked to in the summary refers to an article on the BBC News website.

For those interested, the BBC article is here:

Minister defends safety law on messaging apps

In my experience, I've never got a vanilla work phone. The apps that are on it are those the company want on it, not the phone manufacturer. Then again, I only use my work phone for work. It would never occur to me to put TikToc on it.

Then again, it would never occur to me to put TikTok on my personal mobile either!

There are a number of non-Ukrainian reporters in Ukraine at the moment, doing there stuff. None of them under the threat of 15 years imprisonment for reporting stuff the government (Ukrainian or otherwise) deem to be 'not true'. Same cannot be said on the Russian side, where all the independent media seem to have been shut down.

I don't think its right imply some sort of misinformation equivalence here.

Reminds me of the H.L. Mencken quote "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.". Well, we definitely got it good and hard!

The party of government in the UK (who are introducing this legislation) are the Conservatives. As a right-wing party they are more aligned to the Republicans party in the US than (say) the Democrats. Equating them with busy-bodying greenies doesn't fit, I'm afraid! (Indeed, as a party the Conservatives have a few Right Wing Nut Jobs of their own in their parliamentary ranks - I'm sure you would feel at home!)

The commitment came out of COP26, which was hosted in the UK. Outside the US, even right wing anti-woke parties can still have concerns about the environment!

Assuming the legislation is like that for Scotland, there will be an exemption to allow those who need them for independent living or medical purposes.

Alternatively, just don't use straws at all!

Single use plastic straws are already banned in England. The legislation in Scotland also bans them, with an exemption for those who need to use them for independent living and medical purposes.

The ban here in Scotland came into force on 1st June last year (2022). Nice to know England is catching up!

The situation is similar in the UK. Here in Scotland we've elected a government which is committed to holding a referendum to leave the UK (and then rejoin the EU).

During the EU Brexit referendum Scotland voted to remain in the EU, but were forced out with the rest of the UK. Scotland's government ('Holyrood') is definitely more 'left' than the UK government ('Westminster').

EU passports are burgundy in colour. However, they don't have to be and the UK could have blue passports if they wanted.

The new UK passports are actually black in colour anyway.