Divorced man demands a duel with ex wife

A man from Kansas facing mounting legal problems after his divorce has demanded the right to trial by combat to settle the matter in a sword fight.

David Ostrom, 40, asked a court in Iowa to grant his motion for a duel so that he could confront either his ex-wife, Bridgette Ostrom, 38, or her lawyer, Matthew Hudson, ‘‘on the field of battle where [he] will rend their souls from their corporal (sic) bodies’’.

The Ostroms have been entangled in disputes over visitation and custody rights and property tax payments.

In documents filed with the court in Harlan, where his former wife lives, Ostrom claimed that she and

Hudson had ‘‘destroyed [him] legally’’.

He proposed a solution that dates back to the earliest years of the American colonies. ‘‘To this day, trial by combat has never been explicitly banned or restricted as a right in these United States,’’ Ostrom argued. The right was inherited from British common law, where it was upheld ‘‘as recently as 1818 in a British court’’.

Ostrom, who has no experience of sword fighting, asked the Iowa district court in Shelby County to give him 12 weeks ‘‘lead time’’ so that he could source or forge his own swords.

He told The Des Moines Register this week that he had hatched the plan after learning of a 2016 case in which Justice Philip Minardo of the New York supreme court refused to grant a request for a duel from a Game of Thrones-obsessed lawyer but acknowledged that trials by combat had never been outlawed in America. Ostrom said that he had become frustrated by his ex-wife’s lawyer’s legal tactics and had now ‘‘met Mr Hudson’s absurdity with my own absurdity’’. Mrs Ostrom could nominate the lawyer as her ‘‘champion’’, he added. ‘‘If Mr Hudson is willing to do it, I will meet him. I don’t think he has the guts to do it.’’ Hudson responded to the challenge by correcting Ostrom’s spelling. ‘‘Surely [Mr Ostrom] meant ’corporeal bodies’ which Merriam Webster defines as having, consisting of, or relating to, a physical material body,’’ he wrote. ‘‘Although [Ostrom] and potential combatant do have souls to be rended, they respectfully request that the court not order this done.’’

The lawyer added that a duel could be fatal.

‘‘Such ramifications likely outweigh those of property tax and custody issues.’’

He also proposed a court-ordered psychological evaluation for his client’s former husband. Judge Craig Dreismeier, has issued no decision yet, citing irregularities with both sides’ motions and responses.

– The Times

Scientists at Google have used artificial intelligence to make faster, more accurate local weather predictions.

They are working on a ‘‘deep learning’’ system to make forecasts within minutes by looking at radar images of a given location and working out if it will rain within the hour. The technique is known as ‘‘nowcasting’’.

Google said that the tool would take 10 minutes to create a six-hour forecast for a square kilometre. Conventional technology can take three hours to produce a forecast, ruling out short-term predictions. Traditional systems also need massive computing power: the world’s biggest forecasting centres process up to 100 terabytes daily and then take hours to run simulations on supercomputers.

Developers hope that the tool could one day be used for everyday activities, such as planning cycling routes that avoid rain, or pinpointing the ideal spot on a beach for a wedding. An instant system could be used for farming, disaster prevention and even by pilots wanting to avoid turbulence.

‘‘Weather predictions can inform people about whether they should take a different route to work, if they should reschedule the picnic, or even if they need to evacuate due to an approaching storm,’’ Jason Hickey, a senior software engineer at Google Research, said.

Engineers at the US software giant taught the system to make fast predictions by making it analyse vast numbers of precipitation patterns around America and noting how they changed. The network became good at predicting precipitation by looking at an image and analysing the information within.

This is different to forecasting that relies on data such as cloud motion, pressure, temperature and humidity. However, Google has admitted that its system struggles beyond a six-hour forecast and is less good when it comes to forecasting for far larger areas. The work is also in the early stages and has yet to be peer-reviewed or used in any commercial systems.

Last year IBM said it had created an app that could provide hourly updates for any location on Earth to the nearest three kilometres.

– The Times