Bank Rejects Customers Who Aren’t Picture Perfect

--Fatima Amatulla walked into a Society National Bank branch in Cleveland dressed in a long black dress and a veil, but bank security officers forced her to leave before she could pay a $92 telephone bill. “I told (the guard) we dress like this all the time, and I told him that I just wanted to pay a bill, not cash a check,” Amatulla said. “But I guess fear of what you can’t see makes them jittery. I wonder if they treat all (Muslim) sisters with veiled faces like that.” Edwin Nagorski, vice president for security at Society, said everyone is treated the same. “Every once in a while, the presumption is made that we are prejudiced against their religious preference,” he said. “But we have bank security cameras to record transactions, and we must be able to see who we’re dealing with.” Customer Donald B. Glaze said that, when he saw a veiled woman, “a chill went through my spine. In light of everything, you can’t be too careful.”

--Laurence Olivier has returned to work on his latest book about acting, having recuperated from a fall that gashed his leg, the actor’s secretary said in London. “He is fine again now,” said Shirley Luke. Lord Olivier, 78, stumbled against a piece of furniture at his country home near Shoreham in southern England last weekend, Luke said.

--The second annual Ugliest Pickup Truck in Texas Contest will be held July 14 at the Hog Eye Bait Shop in Austin, John Kelso, an American-Statesman newspaper columnist, announced. Prizes include a can of Fix-a-Flat, a bottle of brake fluid and a pair of foam dice. The only proviso is that the winning truck “has to get out there and leave on its own power,” Kelso said. “We don’t want to leave bait shop management with a yard filled with trashed out trucks.”

--A game ranger allowed himself to be gored by a charging black rhinoceros instead of shooting it because the species is near extinction, the Natal Mercury newspaper reported in Durban, South Africa. The rhino battered his legs, ripped open his right thigh and knocked him to the ground in a nature reserve. “I watched her rush forward. She dropped her head and I knew she was going to hit my legs,” said Dave Reynolds from his hospital bed. “I could easily have shot her, but the black rhino is an endangered species.”