MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Violence and fear swept through towns in an arc around Minneapolis for more than 40 hours over the weekend as a man seemingly intent on sowing political devastation killed one Minnesota state lawmaker and left another bleeding from nine bullet wounds.

By Nathan Layne BLAINE, Minnesota (Reuters) -From the pulpit on Sunday, Father Joe Whalen exhorted his parishioners to avoid the kind of extreme partisanship and hate that appeared to be behind the killing of one of the church's own,

The shootings of two state lawmakers by a suspect with a “manifesto” of other political targets was an unprecedented act in Minnesota history. But it also comes at a divisive, volatile moment in U.S.