The House Judiciary Committee on Monday released the transcript of its closed-door interview with Geoffrey Berman, the former top federal prosecutor in Manhattan who was forced out by Attorney General Bill Barr last month.

Why it matters: House Democrats have seized on Berman's testimony, in which he claimed the attorney general sought to "entice" him into resigning so that he could be replaced by SEC chairman Jay Clayton, to bolster allegations that the Justice Department has been politicized under Barr.

The doors of public schools are swiftly slamming shut for many Americans ahead of this next school year.

Driving the news: Los Angeles and San Diego are starting out online-only this fall, forcing 825,000 students to learn with a laptop.

1. Global: Total confirmed cases as of 5 p.m. ET: 12,995,037 — Total deaths: 570,435 — Total recoveries — 7,157,634 — Map.
2. U.S.: Total confirmed cases as of 5 p.m. ET: 3,341,838— Total deaths: 135,425 — Total recoveries: 1,006,326 — Total tested: 40,282,176 — Map.
3. World: WHO head: There will be no return to the "old normal" for the foreseeable future — Hong Kong Disneyland closing due to surge.
4. States: California orders sweeping rollback of open businesses as virus cases surge — Cuomo says New York will use formula to determine if reopening schools is safe.
5. Politics: McEnany denies White House issued "opposition research" on Fauci.

The Biden campaign issued a statement on Monday slamming President Trump for reportedly seeking to discredit Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious-diseases expert, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage in the U.S.

The state of play: Over the weekend, a number of media outlets received a statement from an unnamed White House official that listed the times Fauci was "wrong on things" in the pandemic's early days.

The school year begins soon in certain states, but we're getting further away from a national consensus on if and how schools should reopen for in-person learning.

Axios Re:Cap talks with Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, to better understand where we are and where we’re going.

Go deeper: Los Angeles and San Diego public schools will be online only this fall

The Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney on Monday released the clemency order President Trump signed for his associate Roger Stone, who had been sentenced to 40 months in prison for lying to Congress and other crimes stemming from the Mueller investigation.

Why it matters: The federal judge who sentenced Stone had sought clarification on the exact scope of the commutation that the White House controversially announced on Friday night.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany denied Monday that the White House released "opposition research" on Anthony Fauci’s handling of the coronavirus, despite the fact that multiple media outlets received a statement from an unnamed White House official that listed the times Fauci was "wrong on things" in the pandemic's early days.

The big picture: McEnany painted the statement as "a direct answer to what was a direct question" for a Washington Post piece, but the administration forwarded that document to other outlets, including CNN, which described it as "[resembling] opposition research on a political opponent."

George Soros' philanthropic group, the Open Society Foundations, announced Monday it will invest $220 million in racial justice organizations and leaders that "helped to create and now sustain the momentum towards racial equality."

Why it matters: The windfall "will immediately reshape the landscape of Black political and civil rights organizations" while positioning Soros' foundation "near the forefront of the protest movement," the New York Times' Astead Herndon writes.

Former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney wrote in a CNBC op-ed published Monday that if Congress seeks to pass another relief package, it should treat the economic crisis as "public-health driven" and avoid traditional fiscal measures like providing stimulus checks.

The big picture: Striking a vastly different tone from that of President Trump, who has boasted about the U.S.' testing capabilities and downplayed the severity of the health crisis, Mulvaney called for any stimulus package to "be directed at the root cause of our recession: dealing with Covid."

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered a new delay in federal executions, just hours before the first lethal injection since 2003 was set to be administered at a federal prison in Indiana, AP reports.

The big picture: The Trump administration has appealed Chutkan's decision to a higher court in its push to move forward with the execution. Attorney General Bill Barr instructed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to reinstate the death penalty last year after a 17-year informal moratorium, which was first established so the Justice Department could review its lethal injection protocols.

Random House announced Monday that Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor for special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, will release a new book, titled "Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation," about the probe on Sept. 29.

Why it matters: Weissmann helped Mueller lead the case against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who ultimately pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in 2018. Random House says the book will showcase "the painful deliberations, and mistakes of the team — not to mention the external efforts by the president and Attorney General William Barr to manipulate the investigation to their political ends."

More than 1,000 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have signed a letter highlighting "ongoing and recurring acts of racism and discrimination" against Black employees at the agency, NPR reports.

The state of play: By Sunday evening, about 9% of the agency's workers had signed the letter, which claims the CDC has fostered an "oppressive monoculture that stifles the growth of Black professionals and inhibits their ability to fully contribute their talents and skills."

The Washington Redskins announced Monday that the NFL team plans to change its name.

Why it matters: It brings an end to decades of debate around the name — considered by many to be racist toward Native Americans. The change was jumpstarted by nationwide protests against systemic racism in the U.S. this summer.

When Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson posted an anti-Semitic quote on Instagram last week, falsely attributed to Adolf Hitler, it set off a firestorm that built over a week.

What happened: Jackson first apologized within a day, claiming he "didn't realize what this passage was saying," but plenty of people jumped into the fray from various sports leagues to both defend and criticize him over the incident.

China said Monday that it will ban entry to Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) over their criticisms of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, AP reports.

The big picture: The move seems to be retaliatory after the U.S. announced sanctions on four Chinese officials for human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in the region last week.

Roger Stone told Axios in a phone interview that he plans to write and speak for President Trump's re-election now that Stone "won't die in a squalid hellhole of corona-19 virus."

"I'm asthmatic," said Stone, 67. "Sending me to a prison where I could not be socially distanced ... would, I think, be a death sentence."

Planned Parenthood Votes, the political arm of the national reproductive rights group, is ramping up its general election efforts, launching five-figure digital ad campaigns across nine battleground states.

Why it matters: This is the group's biggest election cycle effort yet, part of a larger $45 million investment ahead of November's election, and provides a glimpse of how Democrats are trying to take down President Trump on women's health issues while boosting Joe Biden as the alternative.

America First Action, a leading pro-Trump super PAC, will focus on Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in a $23 million anti-Biden summer ad campaign beginning next week.

Why it matters: The ad buy signals which swing states the groups sees as most vulnerable for President Trump. Arizona and Wisconsin were not included earlier this year in the core battleground strategy.