The Chinese firm ZTE said on Wednesday it had ceased “major operating activities” after the Trump administration banned the company last month from using components made in the United States. With manufacturing halted at the ZTE plant in Shenzhen, factory workers have been getting called in for training sessions every other day or so — a snooze, they say. The rest of the time, they loaf around in nearby dorms. Trading in the company’s shares has been suspended for weeks.

There’s a piquant contrast in the press coverage across the decades of Billy Graham’s various private dealings with Richard Nixon, as displayed on the tapes gradually released from the National Archive or disclosed from Nixon’s papers. We’ll come shortly to the flap over Graham and Nixon’s closet palaverings about the Jews, but first let’s visit another interaction between the evangelist and his commander-in-chief. Back in April, 1989, a Graham memo to Nixon was made public. It took the form of a letter from Graham, dated April 15, 1969...