Cardinals are appointed by the Bishop of Rome and they are, technically, Roman clergy. They obtain titular churches in the diocese of Rome, or titular dioceses in the suburbs of Rome. The case of Cardinal Patriarchs is a little different, but you can see their close association with the Roman Pontiff by their arms, which bears the tiara. It was, in antiquity, the job of the Roman clergy to elect a Bishop of Rome. That’s what they do today. NB: Not all the clergy of Rome vote, but only the designated “hinge-men” who are electors (“cardinal” comes from the Latin word for “hinge”, cardo).

If Francis was at the very least only the Bishop of Rome all these years, he could create cardinals. The College of Cardinals (divided into three orders of bishop, priest and deacon) don’t have to be consecrated as bishops. They usually are now, but not necessarily. This distinguishes the College of Cardinals from the College of Bishops, which seems more strictly related to the Successor of Peter as Vic

Foreign manufacturers in China are paying duties of 125 per cent to import components and then 145 per cent to export to the US...“They are hit twice.”

Excerpt: "I think it very important to spell out exactly what our duties toward the Holy Father are, and exactly what his universal jurisdiction entails, and under exactly what conditions his teaching on faith and morals is infallible. Certainly, there is a danger of an exaggerated maximalism..."

Top Pentagon aides were developing a briefing for Elon Musk last month on more than two dozen highly classified weapons programs for fighting China until the department’s top lawyer intervened, people familiar with the plan said.

Acting Pentagon General Counsel Charles Young learned that a memo being drafted to show Musk contained information on 29 China-related “special access programs,” a designation for the military’s most sensitive secrets, the people said.

China has exempted some U.S. imports from its 125% tariffs and is asking firms to identify critical goods they need levy-free, according to businesses notified, in the clearest sign yet of Beijing's concerns about the trade war's economic fallout.

...

But, he cautioned: "It’s clear that neither the U.S. nor China want to be the first in reaching out for a deal."

Peter Kwasniewski: "Today the German Bishops' Conference released pastoral guidelines on imparting quasi-liturgical blessings to gay couples. It's as if they were just waiting for the right moment, when there's no one in Rome who can react to it."

Excerpt: "The Winding Cloth is traditionally given to the living mothers of priests, to be cherished and kept in a special linen envelope bag. When the mother of the priest dies, the Cloth is placed in her casket. A little traditional humorous story accompanies the practice: This way Heaven and Saint Peter know that the soul is that of a mother of a priest."

Additionally, Cardinal Dolan suggests the next pope should be a blend of John Paul II, Benedict XVI, & Francis.

Catholic civil rights group, the Catholic League, has written to a letter to the House Ethics Committee saying that Georgia U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene should be censured after making a controversial post on X believed to be tied to the death of Pope Francis.

“I don’t think we can’t work together on pronoun politics. This election did not teach you how damaging that is. I don’t think there’s anything that I can tell you,” Carville said on the Politics War Room podcast on Tuesday...Carville’s comments came after he said last week that the Democratic Party needed to distance themselves from identity politics because their first priority should be to win elections.

• Sarah Wynn-Williams alleged Meta collaborated with the Chinese Government on AI and censorship, then lied to the US Congress.
• Wynn-Williams claimed the Facebook owner worked with Chinese officials, developing censorship tools tested in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

I've come across some inactive communities on instances other than mine. A few I've thought would be worth restarting but I'm not sure how this works on Lemmy.

Alternatively, I thought about starting a new community under the same theme and growing a community there but, again, I am not sure if everyone is free to start a community or if it is something that you have to gain approval of your instance first.

The plan can be summarized in three points:

1. Disorient the world economic order with tariffs.
2. Drop tariffs for friendly countries willing to peg their currency to the dollar and abide by certain economic and military rules.
3. Charge said countries a regular "user fee" for membership inside this new order.

Europe having their own currency and being adverse to cooperation with the US in terms of this new world order is why Trump is friendlier to Russia and why he is less friendly to Ukraine. Ukraine belongs outside this new order unless they make a "deal" with the US. I would be interested to see if Russia would be willing to peg their currency and pay a membership fee. Probably not.