Hello @Yochanan, I know what .pacnew files are, and I know how to generally handle them.
But I mentioned in the OP that I did not edit those files, and therefore there should not be .pacnew files being generated.
If Manjaro is set up correctly, then I believe an end user should never see pacnew files for files maintained by Manjaro that the user never touches.
I installed Manjaro and it created those files, and I should therefore be able to upgrade without having to manually perform Manjaro’s maintenance during the updates.
In a similar vane, then mkinitcpio also has the same issue. This is a file I should not care about: I install Manjaro, and I tell Manjaro to update. pacnew files should be of no concern unless I am manually editing things, but I am not.