Samsung has confirmed that its "smart TV" sets are listening to customers' every word, and the company is warning customers not to speak about personal information while near the TV sets.

The company revealed that the voice activation feature on its smart TVs will capture all nearby conversations. The TV sets can share the information, including sensitive data, with Samsung as well as third-party services.

The news comes after Shane Harris at The Daily Beast pointed out a troubling line in Samsung's privacy policy: "Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party."

Samsung has now issued a new statement clarifying how the voice activation feature works. "If a consumer consents and uses the voice recognition feature, voice data is provided to a third party during a requested voice command search," Samsung said in a statement. "At that time, the voice data is sent to a server, which searches for the requested content then returns the desired content to the TV."

The company added that it does not retain or sell the voice data, but it didn't name the third party that translates users' speech.

Update, Feb. 10: Samsung has updated its policy and named the third party in question, Nuance Communications, Inc. Meghan DeMaria

Forecasters expect Hurricane Iota to strengthen into a Category 4 storm before making landfall late Monday night along the border between Nicaragua and Honduras.

Iota, the 30th named storm of the record-breaking 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, is moving over the western Caribbean, and became a hurricane early Sunday. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Iota strengthened into a powerful Category 3 storm early Monday, with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph.

Iota is already bringing wind and rain to the coast of Nicaragua, where residents of low-lying areas are being evacuated. Parts of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and southern Belize could see 8 to 16 inches of rain, with the possibility of 30 inches in isolated areas.

Hurricane Eta brought devastation to Central America just a week ago, slamming into Nicaragua as a Category 4. The storm caused flash floods and mudslides in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala, killing at least 120 people. Forecasters warn that the soil is still saturated with water, and more landslides and flooding are possible. Catherine Garcia

A federal judge in New York restored the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in an unusual Saturday ruling, writing that Chad Wolf "was not lawfully serving as acting secretary of Homeland Security" when he issued a memo limiting the program in July.

The Trump administration has spent more than three years targeting DACA, which gives work and residency rights to certain immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. The Supreme Court struck down the administration's first attempt to end DACA in June, ruling that it hadn't followed the correct federal procedures for policymaking. Wolf then issued his memo, cutting DACA off to new applicants and shortening work permits to a year, from two years.

U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis said Wolf had no authority to issue the memo because the Trump administration had violated the "plain text" of the Homeland Security Department's order of succession in appointing him. This is the fifth ruling against Wolf's authority since the Government Accountability found that Wolf, his deputy Ken Cuccinnelli, and former acting DHS Secreary Kevin McAleenan were all improperly appointed under federal laws on job vacancies. DHS has rejected that finding, and an unidentified DHS spokesperson called Garaufis "an activist judge" and said "DHS is exploring its options."

The Justice Department told Garaufis in a filing Friday that Trump had appointed FEMA chief Pete Gaynor acting head of DHS just long enough that he could issue a succession order so Wolf could lawfully serve as acting secretary, either right before or right after President Trump sent Wolf's nominations to the Senate in September, 10 months after he named him acting secretary. Garaufis said Gaynor could not legally jump in for the "sham purpose" of legitimizing Wolf's tenure, adding, "The court wishes the government well in trying to find its way out of this self-made thicket."

His ruling should reopen the program to new DACA applications, "of which the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute estimates there are about 66,000," The Wall Street Journal reports, and "it will once more permit existing DACA recipients to travel legally outside the country." President-elect Joe Biden has said he will restore DACA to its original 2012 form. Peter Weber

A cookie bakeoff between friends has turned into something much bigger, with dozens of local bakers now making treats for essential workers.

Scott McKenzie was furloughed from his job in April, and decided to use his free time learning how to make chocolate chip cookies. He posted a photo of his cookies on Facebook, and his friend Jeremy Uhrich joked that he made cookies that day and they were better. McKenzie and Uhrich decided to have a bakeoff, and planned on donating the cookies to frontline workers in their community, who would pick the winner.

This quickly morphed into a group called Cookies for Caregivers, which brings goodies like cookies, cakes, and brownies to nurses, firefighters, and grocery store employees around Huntington, Pennsylvania. Since April, more than 100 people have joined, and they've delivered more than 15,100 treats across town. "We've seen a lot of smiles and tears during deliveries, people are so appreciative," Uhrich told People.

Uhrich has two young sons, and he said this has been a learning experience for them, and they are able to see "why it's important to show gratitude to the people in our community who have to be brave, get up, go to work, and battle this virus every day." McKenzie told People the Cookies for Caregivers bakers have no plans on stopping, because "kindness doesn't have an expiration date." Catherine Garcia

SpaceX launched four astronauts into space Sunday night, marking a first for NASA and private space travel. The four astronauts — Mike Hopkins, Shannon Walker, and Victor Glover of NASA, plus Japan's Soichi Noguchi — are the first sent to the International Space Station from U.S. soil since NASA's space shuttles were retired in 2011, and the first to travel there aboard a privately built spacecraft certified by NASA for human spaceflight. Both President Trump and President-elect Joe Biden tweeted their congratulations after the successful launch.

The astronauts are scheduled to arrive Monday night at the ISS, which is currently celebrating 20 years of continuous human inhabitation. And this SpaceX launch was a long time in the making.

"NASA first entrusted the private sector to fly cargo and supplies to the space station in 2008 under the George W. Bush administration, awarding contracts to SpaceX and then Orbital Sciences," The Washington Post reports. "Allowing the private sector to fly missions was a controversial decision, and many critics at the time said it was unthinkable that NASA would allow the private sector to fly astronauts. But that changed under the Obama administration, which awarded 'commercial crew program' contracts to SpaceX and Boeing, worth $6.8 billion combined, to build spacecraft capable of flying astronauts to the station." Read more of the history, successes and failures, at The Washington Post. Peter Weber

Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) will not debate his Democratic challenger, Jon Ossoff, before the Jan. 5 run-off election for his seat.

The Atlanta Press Club extended an invitation to Perdue and Ossoff to debate on Dec. 6, and while Ossoff accepted, Perdue declined, CNN reports. Ossoff was quick to call Perdue out, tweeting that he was "too much of a coward to debate me again," adding that Perdue "can't defend his lies about COVID-19, self-dealing stock trades, his bigotry, or his votes to take away Georgians' health care. Senator, come on out and try to defend your record. I'm ready to go."

Perdue and Ossoff are facing off again in a runoff race because neither one was able to receive 50 percent of the vote on Election Day. Perdue campaign manager Ben Fry told CNN that the senator had "a commanding first place win, outpacing Ossoff by over 85,000 votes — in nearly every other state, Perdue would have been re-elected already."

Before the Nov. 3 election, Perdue and Ossoff had a testy debate, during which Ossoff said it's possible "Perdue would have been able to respond properly to the COVID-19 pandemic if you hadn't been fending off multiple federal investigations for insider trading. It's not just that you're a crook, senator, it's that you're attacking the health of the people that you represent." Perdue skipped the next debate, the final one before Election Day, to appear at a campaign rally with President Trump. Catherine Garcia

President Trump's campaign on Sunday dropped part of its lawsuit attempting to stop Pennsylvania from certifying its election results.

In a revised filing of the lawsuit, Trump's attorneys took out accusations that election officials unlawfully kept observers with the campaign from being able to watch as votes were counted. Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, have claimed that because of this now-dropped allegation, more than 600,000 votes cast in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia needed to be invalidated.

Now, the lawsuit focuses on an allegation that because some Democratic-leaning counties let voters correct errors made on mail-in ballots, this disadvantaged Republicans, The Washington Post reports. Cliff Levine, an attorney representing the Democratic Party, said "just a handful of ballots" were affected, and this would have "absolutely no impact on the total count or on [President-elect] Joe Biden's win over Donald Trump."

In response, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar (D) requested, again, that the lawsuit be dismissed. Catherine Garcia