PRAGUE — The Iron Curtain was more than just a figure of speech: Communist regimes set up thousands of miles of heavily-guarded, electrified barbed wire fencing to completely isolate Eastern Europe from the West.

That still didn’t stop many from desperately attempting to flee the totalitarian East. Some succeeded but many lost their lives.

Among the latter, in what was then Czechoslovakia, was a priest in the brutally-persecuted Catholic Church named Josef Skop. Hoping to reach East Germany, before the Berlin Wall sealed off its connection with the West, he decided to cross the River Elbe undetected by walking underwater in a homemade diving suit complete with rubber boots.

Not being an expert, he used a garden hose as a breathing tube, a fatal mistake as it proved too long and too narrow to ensure a sufficient air supply.

Skop’s diving suit is on display in “Technology in Dictatorships,” a new exhibition at the National Technical Museum in Prague, now capital of the Czech Republic, one of the two countries into which Czechoslovakia split after communism. The display marks the 30th anniversary of the 1989 anti-communist Velvet Revolution by looking back at the surreal repression the nation underwent and at how it resisted.

It focuses on the technology used by the totalitarian regime to control its citizens — and the innovative means they used to undermine the omnipresent control.

For decades, this was enough to limit the activities of the relatively small number of dissidents.

Threats investigated after deadly Calif. school shooting

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — Authorities are investigating online threats against schools near the Los Angeles-area high school where a 16-year-old boy shot and killed two classmates and wounded three others.

Sheriff’s officials said Sunday that investigators have not found any of the threats made on social media to be credible.

Meanwhile detectives are searching for a motive for the killings carried out Thursday by Nathaniel Berhow at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita. The teen shot himself and later died. Authorities say Berhow didn’t appear to be linked to any ideology.

A wounded 14-year-old girl was released from the hospital Friday. A 15-year-old girl remains hospitalized in good condition.

Officials didn’t say how many recent threats are being investigated. Additional police will be posted at schools Monday.

2 Ark. chemistry professors accused of making meth

ARKADELPHIA, Ark. — Two Arkansas college chemistry professors have been arrested on charges of making meth, in an apparent case of life imitating art.

The Clark County sheriff’s office says Henderson State University professors Terry David Bateman and Bradley Allen Rowland were arrested Friday on charges of manufacturing methamphetamine and using drug paraphernalia.

It wasn’t clear if they remained in jail Sunday.

Tina Hall, a spokeswoman for the Arkadelphia-based school, says Bateman and Rowland have been on administrative leave since Oct. 11.

The arrests drew comparisons to the central character in the hit TV series “Breaking Bad,” in which a high school chemistry teacher makes methamphetamine.

Leaked Russian interference report raises UK vote questions

LONDON — Questions about the British government’s failure to release a report on Russia’s interference in the country’s politics continued to dog Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday as critics said leaks from the document raised concerns about the security of next month’s election.

The report from Parliament’s intelligence committee concludes that Russian interference may have affected the 2016 referendum on Britain’s exit from the European Union, the Times of London reported without saying how it got the information.

The committee said British intelligence services failed to devote enough resources to counter the threat and highlighted the effect of articles posted by Russian news sites that were widely disseminated.

UK media: Prince’s sex claims rebuttal a disaster

LONDON — British media on Sunday slammed Prince Andrew’s effort to rebut claims that he had sex with a teenager who says she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein, branding his interview a public relations disaster.

In a rare interview with BBC Newsnight that was broadcast late Saturday, Andrew categorically denied having sex with the woman, Virginia Roberts Giuffre. But Britain’s newspapers and social media commentators criticized him for defending his friendship with Epstein and for failing to show empathy for the convicted sex-offender’s victims.

“I expected a train wreck,” said Charlie Proctor, editor of the Royal Central website, which covers the British monarchy. “That was a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami, triggering a nuclear explosion-level bad.”

Pope decries ‘greed of a few’ that worsens poverty

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday decried that the “greed of a few” wealthy people is compounding the plight of the poor before sharing a meal with the jobless and the homeless that has become a tradition of his papacy.

Celebrating a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica dedicated to heightening awareness about poor people worldwide, he lamented the lack of concern about growing income gaps between the haves and have-nots.

“We go our way in haste, without worrying that gaps are increasing, that the greed of a few is adding to the poverty of many others,” Francis said in his homily, with poor people among those accorded seats in the basilica for the Mass.

He expressed dismay over the “indifference of society toward poor people.”

HP rejects Xerox offer: HP Inc. says its board has rejected a roughly $33.5 billion takeover offer from Xerox.

The Palo Alto, California-based company said Sunday that the cash and stock deal undervalues its business and its board cited concerns about “outsized” debt levels should the companies combine.

HP, which makes computers and printers, said it recognizes the potential benefits of consolidation and remains open to exploring other options to combine with Xerox Holdings Corp.

Norwalk, Connecticut-based Xerox offered earlier this month to give HP shareholders $17 in cash and a fractional share of Xerox stock for each share they held in HP.