World Briefs
Tallest man in shoe hunt
Finding shoes for the tallest man in the US takes more than a trip to the mall – more like a trip across the country.
Igor Vovkovinskiy flew to Massachusetts from Minnesota so shoe engineers at Reebok could try to custom-build shoes strong enough to support his massive frame. He is 7ft 8in, and technicians estimate his shoe size at somewhere between a 22 and 25 − sizes impossible to find at a regular mall.
Mr Vovkovinskiy says his only shoes have no traction, making it “suicidal” to leave his home, particularly in wet or snow conditions.
“I haven’t been able to go for a joyful walk for six years now − that’s something that I’ve missed and I know my dog has missed. I look forward to just going for a walk withmy dog.”
Olympic patchwork boat
A boat crafted from 1,200 pieces of wood, including fragments from the Mary Rose and Jimi Hendrix’s guitar, has been officially unveiled as part of a national art project to mark the Olympics.
Created as a “floating collage of memories”, The Boat Project has been funded by the Arts Council England’s Artists’ Taking the Lead project as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
The artists who came up with the idea, Gary Winters and Gregg Whelan, known as Lone Twin, visited 20 locations across the region seeking contributions to be used in the building of the craft.
Yahoo! admits bio error
Struggling internet pioneer Yahoo! has admitted to making an “inadvertent error” after an activist shareholder pointed outthat its CEO’s online bio wrongly said he had a degree incomputer science.
Until late Thursday, the company’s website had said chief executive officer Scott Thompson had received a bachelor’s degree in accounting and computer science from Stonehill College, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Yahoo! later admitted, however, that Mr Thompson had received a bachelor of science degree in business administration with a major in accounting from Stonehill, a Catholic Schoolnear Boston.
By early yesterday, the website biography did not contain any reference to Mr Thompson’s educational background.