Pizzeria staff takes savings to Costa Rica

Travel tips

Pizzeria staff takes savings to Costa Rica

Imagine an employer who would shut down his business so his employees could spend a week relaxing in Costa Rica. That's what Howard Olivier, owner of Flying Pie Pizzaria in Boise, Idaho, is doing. The trip has been 13 years in the making — about 10 percent of workers' tips have been set aside. Sixty-two people are going on the trip, including pizzeria staff, some family and one former employee. The total cost of the trip will be $116,000, all of which is covered by the tip money. The cost of the trip includes a week of pay for all employees. The group flies out Tuesday.

Close call

Hey, is that thing dangerous?

Some 30 years ago, a woman in Mariehamn, Finland, found an orange-sized grenade in her garden, put it in her car, and took it to the Aland Islands museum, where museum staff have kept it on various shelves. Until December, no one thought to check whether it was live. When they finally X-rayed it, they saw that it was, asked explosives experts to defuse it and return the shell. The WWI grenade was believed to originate from a Russian munitions depot.

Crime is hard

Returning to scene never a good idea

An armed bank robber was arrested when he returned minutes later to pay off his overdraft. The man ran into the Kredi Bank in the Serbian ski resort Nova Varos wearing a ski mask and brandishing a shotgun and demanded tellers hand over all the cash they had. He got about $30,000 in cash and then ran off. Staff were still recovering from the shock when the same man, this time without ski mask, walked back in to settle his overdraft. Sharp-eyed staff recognized the distinctive sneakers he had been wearing, called police and kept him busy about his overdraft until officers arrived.

His outfit's good, style needs work

A man may have tipped his intentions when he stood in line at a bank in Stow, Ohio, wearing a ski mask before staging a holdup. Police said 24-year-old Feliks Gold­shtein was arrested after a brief car chase. Police said the teller asked the man to take off the mask before being served. At that point the man displayed what turned out to be a toy gun and told the teller to give him all the money. Police Capt. Rick Myers said it's unusual for a masked robber to wait in line at a bank.

Fighting crime, too

Suuuuuure, you're a police officer

When two crooks threatened a female employee at a Berlin convenience store with a machete, she set off the store's silent alarm. Plain-clothes police officers arrived at the store minutes later but ended up being arrested when uniformed officers stormed in seconds afterward. The crooks escaped.

Compiled from Times wire services and other sources.