1/ A Texas school district made face masks part of its dress code in order to get around Gov. Abbott’s anti-mask mandate order. Several school districts in Texas have sought to require masks amid an increase in COVID-19 cases. Gov. Greg Abbott has tried to ban mask mandates. (NBC News)

2/ The Biden administration will use a federal civil rights office to deter states from banning universal masking in classrooms. The move, using the federal Department of Education’s civil rights enforcement authority, escalates the administration’s fight with Republican governors who are blocking local school districts from requiring masks to protect against the coronavirus. (New York Times)

3/ The Biden administration announced that it will require nursing home staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition for those facilities to continue receiving federal Medicare and Medicaid funding. The new mandate, in the form of a forthcoming regulation to be issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, could take effect as soon as next month. (Associated Press / CNN)

4/ The U.S. will advise most Americans to get booster vaccine shots eight months after they received their original dose. Nursing home residents and health care workers will most likely be the first to get booster shots, as soon as September, followed by other older people who were vaccinated last winter. The additional doses will be available to people eight months after they received their second dose. (New York Times / NBC News)

5/ Afghan President Ashraf Ghani resurfaced in the UAE after fleeing Afghanistan, according to the Emirati government. Ghani left Afghanistan on Sunday evening with no announcement or clear reporting on where he was going. As the Taliban entered the presidential palace and declared the war “over,” Ghani said he fled to prevent “a flood of bloodshed.” (CNBC)

6/ Federal officials pressed GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert over her apparent personal use of campaign funds. A letter from the Federal Election Commission to the treasurer of Boebert’s 2022 reelection campaign inquired about four Venmo payments totaling more than $6,000. (CNBC)

7/ The New York Attorney General says the NRA must be dissolved after failing to clean up misconduct. In a court filing, AG Letitia James said the National Rifle Association hasn’t cleaned up rampant financial and managerial misconduct as it claimed over the past year, illustrating the need for the gun-rights group to be dissolved. (Bloomberg)

poll/ 81% of voters surveyed support requiring every voter to show a photo ID to cast a ballot. Support for voter ID laws rose by 4 percentage points from March to July, and it increased by 13 percentage points among Black voters surveyed. (