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Gap Inc. will soon require masks in all of its U.S. stores, which include Old Navy, Athleta, Banana Republic, Intermix, Janie and Jack and its namesake Gap stores. The new requirement will start Aug. 1, the same day Target will start its nationwide mask mandate. (Tyko, 7/20)

Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Monday implored Americans to wear masks to slow the spread of the coronavirus and acknowledged he was wrong to discourage the use of face coverings in the early days of the pandemic. “I’m pleading with your viewers. I’m begging you,” Adams told the hosts of “Fox & Friends” in an interview. “Please understand that we are not trying to take away your freedoms when we say, ‘Wear a face covering.’” (Forgey, 7/20)

The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), which represents the hotel industry, says several major chains nationwide will require face masks for guests in all public spaces. The group released industrywide guidelines for enhanced health and safety protocols during the coronavirus pandemic last week, with members including Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, Loews Hotels, Radisson and Wyndham all set to mandate masks and social distancing. (Gangitano, 7/20)

An ice cream store manager in New York said his employer recently fired him for not serving a customer who wasn’t wearing a mask, despite a state mandate issued months ago requiring all residents to wear face coverings in public amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Thomas DeSarle, who previously worked at a Carvel ice cream store in Long Island, told local station WABC in an interview this week that he was fired earlier this month following the incident with the customer. (Folly, 7/20)

And on the Georgia mask fight —

In a campaign ad in 2018 boasting that he was “so conservative,” Brian Kemp brandished a chain saw and declared his tool “ready to rip up some regulation.” Two years later, the regulation to which Georgia’s Republican governor is turning his attention is a municipal order requiring people to wear masks in Atlanta, among other precautions designed to arrest transmission of the novel coronavirus, which has sickened nearly 150,000 Georgians. (Stanley-Becker and Witte, 7/20)

Since officials announced Georgia's first confirmed cases of COVID-19 on March 2, the state has drawn national attention over the coronavirus pandemic. It was one of the first states in the country to begin reopening its economy, and has since joined others in pausing its phased approach amid rising numbers of new cases and hospitalizations. Most recently, its Republican governor, Brian Kemp, has become engaged in a legal dispute with the mayor of Atlanta over mask mandates, which more states and cities have been issuing as coronavirus cases rise. (Deliso, 7/21)