I recommend four quick reads for anyone trying to understand the latest dark turn in the Russia story:

— Anne Applebaum, in The Washington Post, on the deterioration of U.S.-Europe relations: “The Russian government, which has long sought to expel the United States from the continent, is overjoyed.”

— David Frum, in The Atlantic, on the same subject. His Twitter feed is also worth reading, including: “Since 1945, the supreme strategic goal in Europe of the USSR and then Russia was the severing of the US-German alliance. Trump delivered.”

— Josh Marshall, in Talking Points Memo, arguing that you should worry less about why Trump and Putin are in “a de facto alliance against ‘Europe’” and instead focus on the consequences: “The relevant issue is that they appear to be operating with common goals.”

— And a tweetstorm by my newsroom colleague Max Fisher, which starts with: “When I met with German leaders in January, they were already preparing for the possibility of breakup with the US.”

On other topics: My latest column looks at the remarkable recent developments at Princeton University. It is the place F. Scott Fitzgerald called “the pleasantest country club in America.” It enrolled freshman classes without any black students into the 1950s. Just a few years ago, it remained one of the country’s least economically diverse colleges.

It’s not anymore. Its president, Christopher Eisgruber, has overseen a sharp increase in the enrollment of low- and middle-income students. In the column, I talk about the lessons that Eisgruber’s campaign holds for the rest of the country.