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The FBI is warning sports leagues about crime organizations targeting professional athletes following a string of burglaries at the homes of prominent NFL and NBA players.

The athletes’ homes are targeted due to the perception they may contain high-end goods like designer handbags, jewelry, watches and cash, the FBI said in a Liaison Information Report obtained by ABC News.

The NFL and NBA already have issued security alerts to their players after the break-ins, some of which have come when players were away with their teams for road games. The NFL’s alert says homes of professional athletes across multiple sports have become “increasingly targeted for burglaries by organized and skilled groups.”

Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks is the latest professional athlete whose home has been burglarized. Lara Beth Seager, the star guard’s business manager, told multiple media outlets Saturday there was a break-in at Doncic’s home. Seager said nobody was home at the time of the incident Friday night, and Doncic filed a police report.

Star NFL quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes of Kansas City and Joe Burrow of Cincinnati, along with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, have been victims, as have NBA players Bobby Portis of Milwaukee and Mike Conley Jr. of Minnesota.

Organized theft groups from South America use publicly available information and social media to identify athletes’ habits and track their comings and goings, the FBI report said. The groups use technology allowing them to bypass alarm systems, block wireless internet connections and disable devices, cover security cameras and hide their identities.

Athletes are encouraged to report suspicious activity, keep records of valuables and where they are kept, employ extra security and use caution on social media. The FBI also suggested athletes avoid posting pictures of valuables, the interior of their homes and real-time posts when on vacation.

NEW CANEY, Texas (AP) — Cleanup was underway Monday after a strong storm system spawned hail, rain, high winds and tornadoes across the southern U.S. over the weekend, killing at least four people.

As of Monday afternoon, over 30 tornadoes had been confirmed as crews worked through about 50 reports of tornado damage spanning from Texas to South Carolina, said Mark Wiley, an emergency response specialist with the National Weather Service’s Southern Region Headquarters.

The storms came over a busy holiday travel weekend, causing some treacherous road conditions along with delays or cancellations at some of the busiest U.S. airports.

The storms first hit Saturday around the Houston area, where the National Weather Service by Monday had confirmed six tornadoes. Two of the twisters were rated EF3, with peak winds of about 140 mph, including one that hit Montgomery County in the Porter and New Caney areas.

“Some of the damage was pretty substantial, some cases leveling homes, some producing quite a bit of roof damage,” said Brian Kyle, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in Houston.

Around 50 homes in Montgomery County sustained major damage and 30 were destroyed, county official Jason Smith said. A couple hundred more homes sustained minor or cosmetic damage, he said.

Smith said crews, which have been working since the weekend, were continuing to pick up debris Monday.

Officials in Mississippi said two people were killed in storms there, including an 18-year-old who died after a tree fell on her home Saturday night in Natchez in Adams County. In Texas, a 48-year-old woman died in the Liverpool area south of Houston, said Madison Polston of the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office. She said the woman was found about 100 feet (30 meters) from her home.

Dozens of homes and buildings were significantly damaged in Brazoria County.

In North Carolina, a 70-year-old man was killed Sunday in Statesville, just north of Charlotte, when a tree landed on the pickup truck he was driving. Highway Patrol Trooper DJ Maffucci said “it was just a freak accident” and he believed Matthew Teeple, of Cleveland, North Carolina, was killed instantly.

Maffucci said that the storms were responsible for a number of downed trees and “quite a few wrecks.”

In the Alabama city of Athens, northwest of Huntsville, storm damaged the downtown area, said city spokeswoman Holly Hollman. Large HVAC units were hurled from the tops of building and the roof was ripped off a bookstore. A full-sized, stripped-down military helicopter was toppled from a pole where it was on display, she added.

“I stepped out on my porch and I could hear it roar,” she said of the storm.

Although somewhat uncommon for the season, weather officials say even in December can see severe weather under the right circumstances, as warm temperatures from the Gulf of Mexico combine with a cold front.

“You can still have the right ingredients that lead to these severe events even in the dead of winter in the Deep South,” said Peter Mullinax, a meteorologist with the National Weather Services’ Weather Prediction Center.

Still, it’s rare for a system to start in Texas and make its way all the way to the Atlantic Coast this time of year, Wiley said.

Meanwhile, in western Pennsylvania, high winds overnight Sunday caused power outages early Monday, most of them in Pittsburgh and other parts of Allegheny County. Wind speeds of more than 60 miles per hour (97 kph) were reported in Pennsylvania as high winds also blew across Ohio and northern West Virginia.

AccuWeather meteorologist Alex DaSilva in State College, Pennsylvania, said a strengthening low-pressure system ushered in the winds that downed trees and utility poles Sunday evening and into the night. Some 60,000 Pennsylvania utility customers were without power Monday morning.

DALLAS – The Dallas Morning News says a few years ago, with the nation in the throes of a pandemic, Sen. Nathan Johnson’s effort to add 1 million low-income Texans to Medicaid drew support from a handful of Republicans in the GOP-dominated Texas Legislature. Most of those lawmakers are gone from the Capitol, an exodus that strips away at the Dallas Democrat’s slim hope of seeing Texas join 40 other states and Washington, D.C. in expanding Medicaid under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Even so, Johnson filed his bill for the upcoming session — his third try — just in case the leaders of an increasingly conservative Texas Legislature change their minds. “I just want a million people to get health insurance, I want health insurance premiums to come down, and I want to do it without levying any new tax on the people,” Johnson said.

“The strategy is to present something that would allow Republican leadership to say, ‘This is a win for all of us.’ I think if there were a signal from leadership, then we would see Republicans fall in line behind this,” he said. Senate Bill 232 would create the Live Well Texas program, which would expand Medicaid while adding elements passed in other conservative states – including incentives to encourage self-sufficiency through health savings accounts, employment assistance and rewards for healthy behaviors. Additionally, the legislation seeks to increase reimbursements to health care providers who see Medicaid patients, potentially expanding access to care for Medicaid patients by bringing more hospitals, doctors and others to the program. In 2021, Johnson’s Medicaid-expansion bill had no Republican support in the Senate, but nine GOP House members joined 67 Democrats as co-authors of an identical House bill. The legislation was bottled up in a committee. Johnson tried again in 2023, but the effort gathered less bipartisan momentum during a particularly contentious session. “I was very serious about passing it when I first filed it, and we had a really good run at it, but I don’t see how the situation has improved,” Johnson said. “But I want something out there to say that if this state wants a conservative way to bring home its own tax dollars and improve the health of its population and bring down health premiums and stabilize family finances and help set people on a path to independence, there is a way to do it that has conservative bona fides.” Opponents of expanding Medicaid say the program is mismanaged, financially unstable, too expensive and fosters government reliance. They also argue that expansion does not improve health outcomes and prioritizes able-bodied adults over children and adults with disabilities who rely heavily on the program.

AUSTIN – The Austin American-Statesman reports that after a Republican Texas House member said a new GOP candidate for speaker is needed to break what he called a stalemate, neither lawmaker currently seeking to lead the lower chamber when the Legislature convenes next month gave any indication that he plans to drop out of the race. State Rep. Gary Gates of Fort Bend County on Friday sent a “dear colleagues” letter to members of the House Republican Caucus decrying the intraparty “bullying tactics” that have arisen amid the race for speaker between Reps. David Cook of Mansfield and Dustin Burrows of Lubbock. Cook has emerged as the choice of 57 of the 88 members of the House Republican Caucus but remains short of the 76 votes needed to secure a majority to become speaker. Burrows, meanwhile, is working to create a bipartisan coalition to push him to a majority. Both camps, along with third parties, have pushed the traditionally members-only speaker’s race into the public sphere. The Texas Republican Party, which advocates electing a speaker on the strength of GOP members alone, released a campaign-style video accusing Burrows of seeking to “cut a deal with the Democrats” to secure the post.

Burrows, a top lieutenant to outgoing Speaker Dade Phelan during the two terms the Beaumont Republican ran the chamber, is contrasting his 10-year service in the House, which includes chairing two major committees, with Cook’s comparatively brief four-year tenure. Cook emerged as a serious candidate for speaker in September when several Republican members assembled privately to discuss selecting an alternative to Phelan, who came under GOP fire for continuing the House tradition of awarding some committee chairmanships to the minority party. Cook walked away from that gathering with 48 committed votes for speaker. Phelan has since dropped a bid for a third term at the helm, and Burrows inherited some the speaker’s core supporters. After a Dec. 7 GOP caucus meeting, Cook’s support increased by nine members, but Burrows claimed he had locked down the magic number of 76 votes. That proved premature, and the GOP infighting continued. In his letter, Gates warned that reuniting the caucus could be problematic without a new face in the race. “Since our Caucus meeting, outside interest groups have been attacking the 31 Republican colleagues who are not supporting the Cook candidacy,” wrote Gates, a House member since 2020. This “has been detrimental for Cook to gain additional support from some of these Republicans, and now requires him to reach out to Democrats to get to the 76 needed votes.”