Latest news with #StevenJohnson
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
Accused killer bailed but case against him 'not weak'
An accused murderer will walk from court after a judge found his special vulnerabilities will make his time in custody more difficult. Victorian Supreme Court Justice Rita Incerti granted bail to Steven Johnson, 73, on Friday morning, five months after he was charged with the murder of Christopher Jarvis. Johnson, who was seated in the dock wearing a neck brace, pulled off his glasses and wiped away tears as he learnt of the decision. "Thank you, Your Honour," Johnson told Justice Incerti. "I will obey all those (bail) orders, as I have previously." Mr Jarvis, 38, was last seen leaving his home in Wangoom, near Warrnambool, in Victoria's west, in June 2006. His body has not yet been found but police believe it is buried in Framlingham Forest, a native woodland owned by an Indigenous trust. Johnson was first charged with Mr Jarvis' murder in November 2022 but the charge was dropped in August 2023. His alleged co-accused Glenn Fenwick ultimately pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter after agreeing to make a statement to police against Johnson. Fenwick, who could be released on parole as early as October, claims he joined Johnson in confronting Mr Jarvis over outstanding rent. It's alleged Johnson struck Mr Jarvis in his driveway, threw him to the ground and then fired a starter pistol near his ear when he would not stop screaming for help. Fenwick claims he only helped hold Mr Jarvis down and then load him into the boot of the car, before they all drove to Framlingham Forest. It's alleged Johnson then struck Mr Jarvis to the head with a baseball bat before removing his clothes and burying him in a shallow grave. Johnson's barrister Patrick Doyle SC on Thursday argued the prosecution case against his client was weak as it centred around Fenwick's evidence. There were discrepancies in Fenwick's story and the fact he made the statement to receive a discounted sentence would give a jury reason to pause, Mr Doyle said. But Justice Incerti on Friday found the prosecution's case against Johnson could not be described as weak, although there were triable issues. She accepted much of the evidence against Johnson came from Fenwick and the ultimate strength or weakness of his account would be examined at a committal hearing in January. "Credibility and reliability will be a central issue in this case," Justice Incerti said. The judge pointed to Johnson's "special vulnerabilities" including his age and medical conditions as exceptional reasons why he should be granted bail. She noted those vulnerabilities have made his time in custody more difficult, as he has not received some of the medical care he needed. Justice Incerti also rejected prosecution claims Johnson was an unacceptable risk of contacting Fenwick or moving Mr Jarvis' body if released. She said a series of bail conditions, including a no-contact order and a ban from entering Framlingham Forest, could alleviate any concerns. Johnson's wife put forward a $500,000 surety as part of his bail, while the 74-year-old will also have to follow a 9pm to 6am curfew. He will return to Warrnambool Magistrates Court in January for his committal hearing.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
Case against cold case murder accused is 'weak': lawyer
An accused murderer should be released on bail because the prosecution's weak case centres around an unreliable key witness, a barrister has argued. Steven Johnson, 73, made the application in the Victorian Supreme Court on Thursday after he was charged in March with the cold case murder of Christopher Jarvis. Mr Jarvis, 38, was last seen leaving his home in Wangoom, near Warrnambool, in Victoria's west, in June 2006. His body has not yet been found but police believe it is buried in Framlingham Forest, a native woodland owned by an Indigenous trust. Johnson was first charged with Mr Jarvis' murder in November 2022 but the charge was dropped in August 2023. His alleged co-accused Glenn Fenwick ultimately pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter after agreeing to make a statement to police against Johnson. Fenwick, who could be released on parole as early as October, claims he joined Johnson in confronting Mr Jarvis over outstanding rent. It's alleged Johnson struck Mr Jarvis in his driveway, threw him to the ground and then fired a starter pistol near his ear when he would not stop screaming for help. Fenwick claims he only helped hold Mr Jarvis down and then load him into the boot of the car, before they all drove to Framlingham Forest. It's alleged Johnson then struck Mr Jarvis to the head with a baseball bat before removing his clothes and burying him in a shallow grave. Fenwick received a discounted sentence because he assisted police and will give evidence against Johnson in court. Johnson's barrister Patrick Doyle SC argued there were real issues with Fenwick's evidence, given his account had changed over the years. Mr Doyle pointed to an earlier claim from Fenwick that he and Johnson both "bashed" Mr Jarvis with a tomahawk and cut off his fingers. Fenwick also previously described assaulting Mr Jarvis while he was in the boot of the car, the court was told. Those allegations were not in the signed statement Fenwick provided to police, Mr Doyle noted. The barrister said the discrepancies in Fenwick's story and the fact he made the statement to receive a discounted sentence would give the jury reason to pause. "There are plainly problems with this crown case," the barrister argued. "The case is weak and readily defensible." Mr Doyle claimed there was limited other evidence connecting Johnson to the crime and there was a strong chance he would be acquitted. The barrister also pointed to Johnson's old age, medical issues and previous good record on bail as reasons why he should be released from custody. Prosecutor Jenaya Ellis argued the prosecution's case was far from weak, saying Fenwick's statement was compelling alongside the other evidence. She noted an imitation pistol was found at Johnson's home during a 2022 search and he was seen grading Mr Jarvis' driveway hours after the alleged murder. Ms Ellis also claimed Johnson was an unacceptable risk of trying to interfere with Fenwick or move Mr Jarvis' body if released. Justice Rita Incerti is due to hand down her bail decision on Friday.
Indian Express
15-07-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
Google's NotebookLM adds features that bring a trove of books for students
Google NotebookLM has added new features that may come in handy for students and professionals to study and brainstorm ideas with the help of its AI-powered tools. For the uninitiated, NotebookLM is one of the most advanced AI-powered research and writing tools. It is integrated with Google Gemini, which allows it to ingest vast amounts of data, such as PDFs, Google Docs, websites, Google Sheets, YouTube videos, and more. The tool is capable of breaking down information into easier formats to aid users. NotebookLM has launched its latest tool, 'Featured notebooks', in collaboration with writers, researchers, and non-profits. The new feature provides a carefully selected selection of notebooks covering a range of subjects, such as parenting, Shakespeare, lifestyle guidance, and more. These notebooks are a convenient way for users to explore NotebookLM's possibilities. It essentially eliminates the need for copying or vigorously taking notes. One can use NotebookLM to summarise key points from all their sources, create a detailed mind map, or even make a podcast where two AI-generated hosts discuss the material provided in a conversational way. Among all the AI apps available, NotebookLM is one of the most useful and educational, and now it's becoming even more resourceful with the latest feature. In a post on X, Steven Johnson, NotebookLM's editorial director, said, 'For newcomers to NotebookLM, the notebooks are a preview of how useful the product can be when you've assembled a collection of sources for whatever project you're working on. But it's also a preview of a potential future where there are thousands of expert-curated notebooks on all sorts of topics that you can add to your own collection to have the knowledge you need on tap.' For most users, @NotebookLM is a tool for understanding and exploring project-based information. But we also think it could be a distribution platform, amplifying expert knowledge. Today we're offering a preview of that vision: Featured Notebooks. Here's the backstory… In a… — Steven Johnson (@stevenbjohnson) July 14, 2025 Some notable highlights include learning about all of Shakespeare's well-known plays from the 16th and 17th centuries with William Shakespeare: The Complete Plays. Eric Opol's Secrets of the Super Agers, which gives longevity and health advice, and The Atlantic's How to Build a Life, which offers guidance on how to 'lead a happier and more fulfilling life'. So far, this new curated notebook tool has been great for testing and exploring NotebookLM's potential. And if the user is interested in English playwrights and poets, the Shakespeare-featured notebook provides a wealth of information and resources for studying and comprehending the author's vast body of work, which includes Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. NotebookLM also has an Audio Overview function that allows the user to listen to audio from anywhere. In the future, Google intends to provide more highlighted notebooks, including further pieces from its collaboration with The Atlantic and The Economist. Google has introduced the option for users to publish their notebooks with a publicly shareable URL in addition to featured notebooks. Since its launch four weeks ago, more than 140,000 public notebooks have been shared, according to Google.
New York Times
16-06-2025
- New York Times
A.I. Is Poised to Rewrite History. Literally.
During my 25 years as a magazine editor, my favorite part of the job has always been helping writers figure out what the story is: where to start it, where to end it, what's important and new about it. So it was with no small amount of humility that, earlier this year, I sat in a Google corporate cafeteria along the West Side of Manhattan and watched as one of my longtime writers — Steven Johnson, the technology journalist and historian — received that kind of guidance from an A.I. instead of me. Johnson, who has published popular histories about pirate attacks, the invention of modern policing and the birth of public health, had begun noodling on a possible book about the California gold rush of the mid-19th century, he explained. But he was still at the point where he didn't know much more than that. 'What's my twist?' he said. 'Literally, I don't know.' To figure it out, Johnson had loaded some of his sources into NotebookLM, an app for researchers and writers that he himself helped build, after becoming the editorial director of Google's Labs division three years ago. Unlike most other A.I. tools, which draw their answers to questions from the mind-boggling infinitude of data they were trained on, NotebookLM draws only from files selected by the user, on the premise that most forms of research benefit from thoughtfully curating your source material. Since the product's worldwide release last year, Google and Johnson have been promoting its utility for all manner of tasks, whether it's auto-generating minutes and takeaways from an audio recording of a meeting or encouraging a more licit use of A.I. among college students. NotebookLM's most viral capability is an auto-generated podcast, which in a matter of a couple of minutes will spit out a detailed conversation between two freakishly realistic voices, drawing out the key concepts of the source material. But as an occasional author of history books myself, I was most interested in how A.I. — one of whose many superpowers is the ability to inhale large amounts of text in an instant and offer credible summaries of it — might transform the way history is written. At Google that evening, as the sun went down over the Hudson, Johnson showed me the results of his experiments so far. He started his brainstorming process by giving NotebookLM excerpts from one of the finest existing histories on the Gold Rush, H.W. Brands's 'The Age of Gold.' He thought he might want to focus on the conflict between white gold-seekers and the Native American groups living in the Yosemite Valley in the 1850s, so he uploaded the text of an older source called 'Discovery of the Yosemite,' by Lafayette Houghton Bunnell, who was part of the Mariposa Battalion, the militia unit that rode into the valley in 1851. Next, to bring in the Indigenous perspective, he went to public-domain websites and found two accounts about the people whom the battalion expelled from the valley: 'The Ahwahneechees: A Story of the Yosemite Indians' and 'Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
RNZ News
26-05-2025
- General
- RNZ News
Porirua soup kitchen opens to support homeless in the city
E Kai soup kitchen setting up to serve a hot meal at its first session on Monday. Photo: RNZ / Nick James A soup kitchen has been set up in Porirua to help support those dealing with homelessness in the city. On a cold windy Monday evening, E Kai had its first event in the CBD, providing pumpkin and lentil soup with Rēwena bread to those in need. The soup kitchen is the only service of its kind in the city and is run by Ngati Toa Rangatira's iwi authority Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira, Porirua City Council and WELLfed an adult education programme which specialises in cooking. Toe-Te Roopu Wahina social services is run by Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira. General manager Steven Johnson told RNZ the soup kitchen was focused on support for those that were homeless. "This initiative is set up to be able to provide a warm inviting space, where food is just the entry for those people to come in for us then to be able to put a wider wraparound service to support them where we can." He expected demand in the soup kitchen to increase as winter approached. Shane Tepania had been dealing with homelessness until WELLfed helped him out. He said they helped him get a job and a house. "Without them I'd probably be back on the streets." The soup kitchen would be very important to people, particularly in the colder months, he said. "If we can make a change, make a difference, wow, it's beautiful really just to see." E Kai will run every Monday from 4 Lyndsey Place in Porirua between 5pm and 7pm.
