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ESPN has five doubleheaders on its 2025 slate.

The NFL released the schedule on Wednesday night, and the Monday Night Football schedule features several teams who each have two appearances.

Here is the entire Monday Night Football schedule:

Sept. 8 Vikings at Bears, 8:15 p.m. ET

Sept. 15 Bucs at Texans, 7 p.m. ET and Chargers at Raiders, 10 p.m. ET

Sept. 22 Lions at Ravens, 8:15 p.m. ET

Sept. 29 Jets at Dolphins, 7:15 p.m. ET and Bengals at Broncos, 8:15 p.m. ET

Oct. 6 Chiefs at Jaguars, 8:15 p.m. ET

Oct. 13 Bills at Falcons, 7:15 p.m. ET and Bears at Commanders, 8:15 p.m. ET

Oct. 20 Bucs at Lions, 7 p.m. ET and Texans at Seahawks, 10 p.m. ET

Oct. 27 Commanders at Chiefs, 8:15 p.m. ET

Nov. 3 Cardinals at Cowboys, 8:15 p.m. ET

Nov. 10 Eagles at Packers, 8:15 p.m. ET

Nov. 17 Cowboys at Raiders, 8:15 p.m. ET

Nov. 24 Panthers at 49ers, 8:15 p.m. ET

Dec. 1 Giants at Patriots, 8:15 p.m. ET

Dec. 8 Eagles at Chargers, 8:15 p.m. ET

Dec. 15 Dolphins at Steelers, 8:15 p.m. ET

Dec. 22 49ers at Colts, 8:15 p.m. ET

Dec. 29 Rams at Falcons, 8:15 p.m. ET

Jan. 3 TBD doubleheader, 4:30 p.m. ET and 8 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — House Republicans are locked in a tense standoff over how to tackle the federal deduction for state and local taxes, or SALT, a sticky issue that could make or break the party’s big bill for President Donald Trump’s agenda.

The ongoing fight has not only pitted Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., the chair of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, against a determined bloc of House Republicans from high-tax blue states; it has also created divisions between the pro-SALT Republicans, undercutting their negotiating leverage and complicating the path to a deal.

While some of them are willing to accept an offer from Smith to raise the cap to $30,000, another faction flatly rejects that figure as insufficient. And they’ve grown increasingly frustrated with some of their colleagues for, in their view, settling for a low-ball offer.

Those tensions came to a boiling point Tuesday when pro-SALT Republicans met in Speaker Mike Johnson’s office to discuss strategy, and asked Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y. — a member of the Ways and Means panel who’s supportive of the $30,000 cap — to leave, according to two sources in the room.

“She wasn’t invited and is not part of our negotiation. That’s why she was asked to leave,” said one of the sources in the room, who described the moment on condition of anonymity. “Jason Smith said yesterday it wasn’t his job to negotiate with us, so no one understands why he sent her there.”

It was a jarring moment of distrust within the faction — a suggestion that Malliotakis was there not to advance their cause but to be a mole for Smith as they were staring him down in a high-stakes negotiation. Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., another SALT supporter who sits on the Ways and Means committee, remarked on social media that she also wasn’t invited to the meeting.

Hours later, Malliotakis voted in the committee for the bill with the $30,000 cap, saying in a statement that it will “provide much-needed relief for the middle-class and cover 98% of the families in my district.” Tenney also backed the bill.

Top House Republicans have highlighted their support for the $30,000 level to suggest that a quartet of other New York Republicans who want a bigger deduction — Reps. Elise Stefanik, Mike Lawler, Nick LaLota and Andrew Garbarino — are being unreasonable. But taxes vary by district, which explains why each member has a different level they are willing to stomach for the deduction. The 2017 tax law Republicans are now seeking to extend imposed a $10,000 cap for state and local tax deductions.

Those four New York Republicans are so far sticking together and have the power to sink the entire bill in the narrow House majority, where Johnson has just three votes to spare.

Stefanik, a member of Johnson’s leadership team who has had an icy relationship with the speaker as of late, has taken a lead role in the talks. Rep. Young Kim, R-Calif., who represents one of the highest-taxed districts in the country, has also been aligning closely with the group of New York Republicans. Now it’s up to Johnson to cut a deal and appease the holdouts — many of them from swing districts that will decide which party controls the chamber in the 2026 midterm elections — on the House floor. 

Asked about the incident at the meeting Tuesday, Malliotakis told NBC News in a statement: “As the only SALT Caucus member on Ways and Means, all I know is they can sit and negotiate with themselves all they want but there will be no changes unless I and the committee agree.”

Malliotakis said that while everyone needs to advocate for their districts, her goal is to reach a resolution and “deliver the one, big, beautiful bill for America.”

Later, the Staten Island Republican said she huddled with Johnson, Smith and other Ways and Means Committee members “for hours” Tuesday night to try to find a path forward on SALT.

“I think there’s room for some better deal, but the window is closing,” Malliotakis told reporters. “The longer this takes and the closer to Memorial Day we get, the low-sodium diets of many of my colleagues on Ways and Means is growing.” 

Smith’s office and Johnson’s office did not respond to requests for comment. But the speaker has publicly insisted that they will reach a deal on SALT, although he acknowledged it may take the weekend to get there. Johnson said he is hosting a meeting Thursday morning between pro-SALT Republicans and some members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, who don’t want to raise the SALT cap any further unless they get steeper cuts to Medicaid in return.

Tensions flare 

As a deal has remained elusive, members of the SALT Caucus have been publicly aiming their fire at Smith, who they believe was trying to jam them by plowing ahead with the committee’s markup of its portion of the broader package, although it’s not unusual for hot-button issues to be punted to leadership. 

Still, some pro-SALT Republicans wanted Smith to delay this week’s markup to give them more time to work out a solution, and the speaker asked if Smith could accommodate that request, according to two Republican members and another GOP source familiar with the matter. But the markup proceeded as planned.

There was also another tense moment prior to the markup, when Smith briefed pro-SALT Republicans on his plan to move ahead with the $30,000 cap. During a Monday video meeting, Smith told his colleagues it wasn’t his job to negotiate with the SALT Caucus Republicans, but the speaker’s job, as NBC News previously reported. Smith explained that his bill reflects the will of his committee, not of the SALT Caucus, the sources said. 

“Someone should go ask the speaker how he would classify this as a negotiation when his own chair says: ‘I don’t have to negotiate with anybody, I just have to negotiate with my committee,’” Lawler told reporters. “His chair should be reminded that he wouldn’t have a f—ing gavel without the members of the SALT Caucus.”

The group is declining to publicly state its demands, other than wanting to raise the cap higher than the current proposal. Behind the scenes, though, multiple GOP sources said the group is pushing for a $40,000 cap for individuals and $80,000 cap for couples. But that would be expensive and steer funds away from tax policies with broader GOP support, both in the House and the Senate.

As negotiations drag on, SALT members have tried to draw more attention to their pet issue by handing out packets of salt outside the speaker’s office and wearing salt shaker pins that say: “Feelin’ Salty.”

“We’re going to continue to talk with the speaker, especially,” LaLota said. “Unfortunately, the Ways and Means Committee has refused to really negotiate with us in good faith. We’re discussing these matters with the speaker.”

It’s an uncomfortable situation for just about all Republicans involved. None of them wants to be seen as standing in the way of Trump’s agenda. But SALT is such a defining issue in their districts — a reason some of their predecessors lost re-election after imposing the $10,000 cap — that they could pay a political price if voters think they accepted a half-baked deal. Stefanik and Lawler are also eyeing runs for governor in New York, making it even more politically imperative to act.

LaLota said he isn’t concerned about the pushback outside Long Island. “I’m here to make my constituents happy,” he said just off the House floor. “That’s my priority.”

In another sign that GOP leaders are peeling off key votes, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., who also represents a high-tax area, said he supports the $30,000 offer — and encouraged colleagues to be willing to compromise.

“They’re fighting for their constituents. I understand they have some very high taxes. So do we in New Jersey. I’m trying to be mindful of actually getting this big, beautiful bill done, and one of the ways is we’re all going to have to give in a little bit,” he said.

“So we have folks from red states that don’t want to do a penny, don’t even want to do the $10,000 that was there. We’ve got folks from other states that want $100,000 or $200,000. Neither extreme, in my mind, is where we’re going to go,” he added. “It’s going to be somewhere in between.

The SALT fight has also created tensions between more moderate Republicans and the far right of the conference.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., complained about the SALT push from her colleagues and singled out Lawler on social media, saying he “usually isn’t the guy in the conference with the best ideas.”

Lawler hit back at Greene on X, saying “shockingly, the ‘Jewish Space Laser’ lady once again doesn’t have a clue what she is talking about.”

He later told reporters he is not going to change his mind just “because Marjorie Taylor Greene throws a hissy fit.”

Kseniia Petrova, a Russian-born Harvard scientist, has been charged with smuggling biological material into the United States — an escalation in a case that has already raised legal and civil rights questions over her detention.

Federal prosecutors allege that Petrova, 30, violated U.S. customs law by failing to declare preserved frog embryos in her luggage when she arrived at Boston Logan International Airport on Feb. 16 from Paris. She now faces a charge of smuggling goods into the United States.

According to a criminal complaint filed under seal this week and made public on Wednesday, a CBP canine alerted officers to Petrova’s duffle bag, which was later searched. Officers found clawed frog embryos, paraffin slides and other samples.

When first questioned, Petrova “denied carrying any biological material,” the affidavit says. After being shown a message from her phone advising her to “make sure you get the permission etc. like that link I sent to leon-/group chat about frog embryos because TSA went through my bags at customs in Boston,” she acknowledged the samples. Asked whether she knew they had to be declared, she responded that she “was not sure.”

Petrova described the incident differently.

“They asked if I have any biological samples in my luggage. I said yes,” she previously told NBC News from detention in Louisiana. She described confusion over the customs procedures and a lengthy interrogation by Customs and Border Protection officers.

“Nobody knew what was happening to me. I didn’t have any contact, not to my lawyer, not to Leon, not to anybody,” she said, referring to Dr. Leon Peshkin, a principal research scientist at Harvard’s Department of Systems Biology and her manager and mentor. “And the next day, they didn’t say what would happen. I was waiting in a cell.”

The document notes that Petrova told Customs and Border Patrol officers that she had protested against the Russian Federation and expressed fear about returning. She asked to go to France, where she held a valid Schengen visa, but was instead later taken into ICE custody where she remains detained at Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe, Louisiana.

During a habeas hearing Tuesday in Vermont federal court, U.S. District Judge Christina Reiss questioned the legality of the government’s actions. “Where does a Customs and Border Patrol officer have the authority on his or her own to revoke a visa?” she asked. “I don’t see anything about a customs violation.”

Petrova’s attorney, Gregory Romanovsky, argued that the government acted beyond its authority. “There is no corresponding ground of inadmissibility,” he said. “You cannot be found inadmissible because of the customs violation.”

“She was willing to go to Paris, but the government did not let her,” Romanovsky added.

Reiss scheduled a tentative bail hearing for May 28 and asked for further briefing on whether the court has jurisdiction to release Petrova.

The drummer of Texas rock band Lord Buffalo was removed from a flight headed to Europe and detained by immigration authorities on Monday, the band said in social media posts on Wednesday.

Yamal Said was “forcibly removed from our flight to Europe by Customs and Border Patrol” at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport on Monday, Lord Buffalo, the Austin, Texas, band said in the social media posts. 

Said is a Mexican citizen and, as a green card holder, is a lawful permanent resident of the United States, according to the band. 

“He has not been released, and we have been unable to contact him,” the band wrote. “We are currently working with an immigration lawyer to find out more information and to attempt to secure his release.”

Said’s detention prompted the band to cancel its upcoming European tour. “We are heartbroken,” the band wrote.

“We are devastated to cancel this tour, but we are focusing all of our energy and resources on Yamal’s safety and freedom,” the post said. “We are hopeful that this is a temporary setback and that it could be safe for us to reschedule this tour in the future.”

The band said in an update to its post on Wednesday afternoon that Said had secured legal representation and “we are waiting to hear what comes next.”

“We want to reiterate that we truly don’t know what’s going on,” the band wrote. “We have more questions than answers, but we will keep you posted as much as we can.”

The Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.

Lord Buffalo also did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the social media posts.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs incorrectly gave veterans about $5 billion more in disability compensation and pension payments than it should have in the last four fiscal years — an error that lawmakers say is recurring and getting worse.

In an oversight hearing Wednesday, the House Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs pressed VA officials to explain how the agency planned to rectify a problem that regularly creates financial nightmares for veterans when they are asked to pay the money back.

“Our veterans live paycheck to paycheck,” said Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, who chairs the subcommittee. “A lot of them are in a deep, dark, black hole.”

Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Ky., said committee staff members visited the VA’s Debt Management Center in February and met veterans who were “confused, angry and even suicidal because they incurred a debt they didn’t know about.”

The VA issued at least $5.1 billion in compensation and pension overpayments from fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2024, Luttrell said. The VA said it overpaid nearly $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2024 alone.

The VA only collected a “portion” of the four-year debt, meaning the agency wasted roughly $677 million in taxpayer dollars, Luttrell said.

Agency officials said many factors lead to overpayment, including administrative errors as well as veterans’ failures to report dependents they no longer have and other changes to their eligibility or status.

Nina Tann, executive director of the VA’s compensation service, said the agency, which serves about 9.1 million people, has a “heightened risk” of making improper payments due to the large number of beneficiaries and the high-dollar amounts it doles out. 

Tann said the agency has taken steps to prevent, detect and correct the issue, including being better about notifying veterans that they need to report changes.

Tann also said the VA fixed an administrative error in January that had been causing duplicate payments for about 15,000 veterans with dependents in fiscal year 2024. The agency did not force those veterans to repay the money, she said.

The overpayments sometimes span many years. In 2023, the VA temporarily suspended the collection of pension debts for thousands of low-income wartime veterans and their survivors after the agency identified an issue with income verification that led to overpayments between 2011 and 2022.

Overpayments also stem from a little-known federal law that prohibits veterans from receiving both disability compensation and special separation pay, or lump-sum incentives that were offered when the U.S. had to reduce its active-duty force or release slightly injured service members.

Since fiscal year 2013, the earliest year for which the VA shared data, the VA has clawed back more than $2.5 billion from about 122,000 disabled veterans who had unintentionally received both benefits, NBC News previously reported.

Luttrell said veterans should not be responsible for correcting government-made errors.

“That’s our fault,” he said. “We have to fix that problem.”

A clear path forward was not established during the roughly one-hour hearing, and Luttrell asked Tann to continue speaking to him afterward. 

“Our heartache is the fact that it’s trending in the wrong direction,” Luttrell told the agency officials. “We’re losing ground.”

CARACAS, Venezuela — A 2-year-old girl arrived Wednesday in Caracas to reunite with her mother after she was separated from her parents when they were deported from the U.S. in what Venezuela denounced as a kidnapping.

Maikelys Espinoza arrived at an airport outside the capital, Caracas, along with more than 220 deported migrants. Footage aired by state television showed Venezuela’s first lady Cilia Flores carrying Maikelys at the airport. Later, Flores was shown handing the girl over to her mother, who had been waiting for her arrival at the presidential palace along with President Nicolás Maduro.

“Here is everyone’s beloved little girl. She is the daughter and granddaughter of all of us,” Maduro said.

The U.S. government had claimed the family separation last month was justified because the girl’s parents allegedly have ties to the Venezuelan-based Tren de Aragua gang, which U.S. President Donald Trump designated a terrorist organization earlier this year.

The girl’s mother was deported to Venezuela on April 25. Meanwhile, U.S. authorities sent her father to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador in March under Trump’s invocation of an 18th-century wartime law to deport hundreds of immigrants.

For years, the government of Maduro had mostly refused the entry of immigrants deported from the U.S. But since Trump took office this year, hundreds of Venezuelan migrants, including some 180 who spent up to 16 days at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been deported to their home country.

The Trump administration has said the Venezuelans sent to Guantanamo and El Salvador are members of the Tren de Aragua, but has offered little evidence to back up the allegation.

Maduro on Wednesday thanked Trump and his envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell, for allowing Maikelys to reunite with her mother in a “profoundly humane” act. Grenell met with Maduro in Caracas shortly after Trump took office.

“There have been and will be differences, but it is possible, with God’s blessing, to move forward and resolve many issues,” Maduro said, alluding to the deep divisions between his and Trump’s governments. “I hope and aspire that very soon we can also rescue Maikelys’ father and the 253 Venezuelans who are in El Salvador.”

A New Jersey couple has been charged after an 18-year-old escaped their residence and said she was forced to live in a dog crate for a year, given a bucket to use as a bathroom and sexually abused.

Brenda Spencer, 38, and Branndon Mosley, 41, of Gloucester Township, were charged with kidnapping and Mosley with additional counts of sexual assault, The Camden County Prosecutor’s Office and Gloucester Township Police announced Wednesday. 

The 18-year-old female had escaped the home on May 8, assisted by a neighbor, prosecutors and police said in a news release. The abuse was then reported to police on Saturday.

The victim said Spencer and Mosley had abused her since 2018.

Around that time, she was removed from school when she was in the sixth grade “at Spencer’s discretion and confined to her home,” officials said.

The victim said shortly after she was pulled out of school, she was “forced to live in a dog crate for approximately one year and was let out periodically,” the release said. 

Later, she was forced to live in a padlocked bathroom and was chained up. She told police she would be let out of the bathroom when family visited the home. At other times she lived in a bare room with a bucket to use as a toilet.

The victim told police the room had an alarm system that would “alert Spencer and Mosley if she tried to leave.”

The victim also reported being beaten with a belt and sexually abused by Mosley, officials stated.

Detectives searched the home and found the victim lived in “squalid conditions” crammed with numerous dogs, chinchillas and other animals. 

A 13-year-old child also lived in the home and was removed from school years prior at Spencer’s discretion, and both girls were allegedly homeschooled, the release said.

Spencer was unemployed and Mosley worked for Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) as a train conductor. He was one of the employees honored by SEPTA in March, described as a train engineer. 

Spencer and Mosley were both charged Sunday with kidnapping, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, five counts of aggravated assault, endangering the welfare of a child — abuse/neglect, criminal restraint, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and unlawful possession of a weapon.

Mosley was further charged with two counts of first-degree aggravated sexual assault, two counts of second-degree sexual assault and one count of endangering the welfare of a child — sexual contact. 

They were arrested at their home on Sunday and remanded to the Camden County Correctional Facility pending detention hearings. 

A public defender listed for the couple declined to comment on the case.

Streaming service Max is yet again changing its name, but users will be familiar with the new branding: HBO Max.

The decision was announced Wednesday by Warner Bros. Discovery during a presentation in New York. The change in name is slated for this summer.

The change restores the recognizable HBO branding, which has been on something of an adventure ever since the early days of streaming services. It’s something the company leaned into on Wednesday, publishing a series of posts to social media poking fun at their own expense.

In one meme, a pigeon sits atop the famous WB water tower as white smoke billows from a chimney — a reference to the recent conclave to select a new pope. “A new brand has been chosen,” the description reads.

In another meme, three cartoon Supermen point at each other, a nod to the famous Spider-Man meme. (Superman, unlike Spider-Man, is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.)

In 2010, HBO called its streaming service “HBO Go.” In 2014, the company rebranded the next iteration of a subscription streaming service to “HBO Now.” In 2020, HBO first added the “Max” title to become “HBO Max” as it launched an independent streaming service. The branding had been introduced a year earlier. Then, in 2023, the company announced it would drop the “HBO” and simply be known as “Max.” Now, the company is reverting back to the “HBO Max” name.

“With the course we are on and strong momentum we are enjoying, we believe HBO Max far better represents our current consumer proposition. And it clearly states our implicit promise to deliver content that is recognized as unique and, to steal a line we always said at HBO, worth paying for,” said Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content, in a statement.

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said in a statement that the company decided to reintroduce the HBO moniker because it “represents the highest quality in media.”

In a news release, Warner Bros. Discovery said that its streaming business was able to increase profitability in the last two years, expanding its global streaming base by 22 million subscribers. It also said it was seeking to have another 150 million paid customers by the end of 2026.

The company said it plans to prioritize box office movies, docuseries, certain reality series and original content while moving away from other genres that drive less engagement.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in his new add-on role of national security adviser, is expected to significantly scale down the size of the National Security Council and make a drastic change to how it works, four people with direct knowledge of the plans told NBC News.

Shrinking the staff at the NSC would be in part designed to more closely align how it operates with the way President Donald Trump makes decisions, these people said. Rather than a large staff generating policy recommendations for the president, the idea is to create a version along the lines Trump prefers — more top-down, with the president directing the national security adviser who then leads the staff to carry out those orders, two of the people said.

The NSC, which is run out of the White House, is the core hub for coordinating a policy process across government agencies to help the president make decisions on foreign policy and national security matters. The size of its staff, which can be as many as several hundred, has changed under different presidents.  

When Trump took office the NSC had 300 staffers, which was cut in half in January to about 150. The expected cuts could whittle the staff down to 50-60, but a final decision has not been made, said three of the people with direct knowledge of plans. Rubio does not plan to fire any staff but is expected to reassign them to other agencies, a senior administration official with direct knowledge of Rubio’s decision making said. 

“Secretary Rubio is doing an incredible job serving as both Secretary of State and White House National Security Advisor,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to NBC News. “Under his leadership at the White House, the NSC team will be streamlined to ensure maximum efficiency and coordination with outside agencies.”

During his flight to the Middle east this past weekend, Rubio discussed the structure of the NSC with Sergio Gor, the White House director of presidential personnel who has managed the appointment of Trump’s staff. 

Alongside other White House officials, Gor and Rubio reviewed data collected over the last three months about NSC personnel and settled on a plan to significantly cut down the size of the staff, the people with direct knowledge of the plans said. 

The data included spreadsheets of NSC staff, positions and salaries, as well as possible redundancies where multiple staff are performing similar duties, one of these people said.

Mike Waltz, who Trump removed as national security adviser earlier this month, had run the NSC in what two of the people with direct knowledge of the planned changes called a “traditional” style that mirrored the way then-President Joe Biden ran the agency, and was not aligned with what Trump prefers.

Rubio also discussed shifting some of the NSC staff’s responsibilities to other agencies, including the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency, one of the people with direct knowledge of the plans said. Currently, government agencies detail staff to work at the NSC, where they focus on specific national security issues or regions of the world and compile information to help inform the president’s decisions.

Under the expected new structure, individual government agencies would make their own recommendations to the national security adviser’s team, and if any coordination is needed, an official from one of the agencies would run point on the matter, according to one of the people with direct knowledge of the plans. The proposed plans to downsize the agency come after Trump fired some NSC officials in April, one day after he met with far-right activist Laura Loomer, who raised concerns about purportedly “disloyal” people working for the administration. 

Rubio is expected to serve as national security adviser for at least six months, according to Trump. The president could name a more permanent replacement by the end of the summer, according to one source involved in discussions.

An Ohio man is accused of burning 100 library books on African American, Jewish, and LGBTQ history, sparking a public outcry.

The Beachwood Police Department said the man checked out the books in April, days after he went to the Beachwood library branch on Shaker Boulevard and got a library card, NBC affiliate WKYC of Cleveland reported.

He allegedly told the librarian that his son was a member of the LGBTQ community and that he was trying to learn more about it, the news station reported.

The library was informed that the man had posted a photo showing a car trunk full of books on the site, Gab.com, according to WKYC. The books had Cuyahoga County Public Library stickers on them. The library was later informed that the man posted a video that appeared to show him burning all of the books he checked out.

The books cost around $1,700, the news station reported.

The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism described Gab as “an online hub for extremist and conspiratorial content” that it mostly used by “conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, members of militias and influential figures among the alt right.”

The Beachwood library directed NBC News to the Cuyahoga County Public Library, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Interfaith Group Against Hate, a coalition led by Jewish, Muslim, and Christian congregations, quickly condemned the man’s actions and said it wants to collect 1,000 “new books lifting up Black, Jewish, and LGBTQ+ voices,” Congregation Mishkan Or said in a Facebook post Monday.

“Whoever perpetuated the idea that you can burn us out of Cleveland, deport us out of Cleveland and deny our ideas and oppress us and frighten us to the corner…they picked the wrong community!” Rabbi Robert Nosanchuk from Mishkan Or said in a statement.

“And that community will continue to respond with love. Let’s use this moment to instead of standing in fear, to stand against this oppressive act, and deepen our convictions to learn about each other’s faith, race, culture and values,” he continued.

“We want to take this act of hate and turn it into a powerful symbol of unity, solidarity and love,” Rev. Ryan Wallace of Fairmount Presbyterian Church said.

Sen. Kent Smith, a Democrat, said the man’s actions “cannot be tolerated.”

“I condemn this act, not only because it is a crime against our institutions and community, but also because it is fundamentally un-American,” Smith said in a statement. “This act of violence is not just a crime against the public catalog of literature that was destroyed, but also is a violation of the marketplace of ideas that is a bedrock principle of American life.”

It’s not clear if the man faces charges. Police said the incident is most likely a civil matter, and the local prosecutor would determine if charges are warranted, according to WKYC. Police said the library wanted the incident documented and that the books are not yet overdue, the news station reported. The man will receive a bill once they are overdue, and the bill will be sent to collections if it is not paid.

NBC News reached out to Beachwood police and the prosecutor’s office for comment.