This week in the saga

The campaign halts. Bombs are mailed to public figures across the country, and from the podium he confirms the suspect has been taken into custody. Then a graver horror: as news breaks of a shooting at a synagogue, he tells the neighborhood to shelter while law enforcement moves in, and the nation grieves the murder of Jewish Americans at the Tree of Life. For a moment the fighting is set aside for something like unity — this evil, he says, is an assault on humanity, and we must unite to conquer hate. But even in grief the old war returns, and within days he is back to the fight, blaming the anger in the country on what he calls dishonest reporting. The nation reels, and the campaign grinds on toward Tuesday.