WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is advising people to temporarily disable the Java software on their computers to avoid potential hacking attacks.

The recommendation came in an advisory issued late Thursday, following up on concerns raised by computer security experts.

Experts believe hackers have found a flaw in Java’s coding that creates an opening for criminal activity and other high-tech mischief.

Java is a widely used technical language that allows computer programmers to write a wide variety of Internet applications and other software programs that can run on just about any computer’s operating system.

Oracle Corp. bought Java as part of a $7.3 billion acquisition of the software’s creator, Sun Microsystems, in 2010.

450 allege sex abuse against entertainer

British police say the late entertainer Jimmy Savile committed more than 200 sex crimes over more than half a century, with most victims children and teens assaulted the length and breadth of Britain, from TV studios to hospitals and even a hospice.

Police said in a report released Friday that the scale of Savile’s sex abuse was “unprecedented in the U.K.” They have recorded 214 offenses committed by Savile, including 34 rapes. In all, 450 people have come forward with information about abuse by the late TV presenter.

The alleged crimes took place between 1955 and 2009.

Victims ranged from a 10-year-old boy sexually assaulted after he asked for an autograph to children groped when they attended a popular music show, and students at a school for troubled girls who were offered cigarettes and trips in Savile’s car in return for sex.

Sen. Rockefeller planning to retire

After nearly three decades in the U.S. Senate, Democrat Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia said Friday he was ready to retire, calling his unrelenting fight to protect the nation’s coal miners one of his proudest achievements.

But in the waning days of his political career, the industry has grown hostile, with coal companies and their conservative allies accusing the five-term senator of being out of touch for defending clean-air regulations and other policies they claim imperil the future of mining.

Rockefeller was also lambasted for support of President Obama’s health care overhaul as the president became ever more unpopular in West Virginia.

Rockefeller’s retirement puts the seat held by Democrats since 1958 in jeopardy for the party, and well-liked Republican U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito has already vowed to run in 2014.

Lottery winner’s body to be exhumed

A judge Friday granted prosecutors permission to exhume the body of a Chicago lottery winner who was fatally poisoned with cyanide just as he was about to collect his $425,000 payout.

Authorities want to do a fuller autopsy on Urooj Khan to confirm earlier but less-thorough toxicology tests, as well as to rule out that natural causes contributed to the 46-year-old’s sudden death, according to documents filed with the motion for an exhumation.