Latest news with #Annapolis
CBS News
2 days ago
- Climate
- CBS News
City Dock streets in Annapolis closed due to flooding
Streets along City Dock in Annapolis are closed because of flooding from abundant heavy downpours, according to the city's Office of Emergency Management (OEM). The city says Compromise and Dock streets were closed after water overflowed onto the roads. Barricades are in place in the area. Dock St. is currently closed due to flooding. Do NOT drive through flooded waters or around barricades. Use alternate routes. Follow any traffic detours in place. — Annapolis OEM (@AnnapolisOEM) June 18, 2025 "Do not drive through flooded waters or around barricades," Annapolis officials said. "Use alternate routes. Follow any traffic detours in place." The Annapolis OEM warns that additional low-lying areas may also flood. The department also urges drivers not to drive through flooded waters or around barricades.
Forbes
5 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Why Unstructured Data Is Sorting Itself Out
Lego pieces for sale at a Lego Store in Annapolis, Maryland, on April 7, 2025. Earlier in March ... More 2025, Lego's CEO told AFP that US President Donald Trump's tariff threats do not keep him up at night, as the world's largest toymaker on Tuesday posted record earnings for 2024. Sales rose 13 percent to 74.3 billion kroner ($10.8 billion) last year, while net profit grew five percent to 13.8 billion kroner. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images) Information, without order, is chaotic. Attempting to work with data without structure and form is rather like watching white noise fuzz on an un-cabled television set, where shapes are almost familiar, but devoid of any recognizable manifestation. Unstructured data inside organizations appears to be full of energy, but it is weighed down by an inertia which precludes it from being useful, primarily because it doesn't know which home (application) it belongs to. To define the term, let's first say that structured data includes spreadsheets with their formalized rows and columns, 'form-based' data resources where we know the fields in a document and so we know what values to expect… and of course relational databases, the purest form of an ordered and structured data repository. Unstructured data, therefore, includes non-tabular data spanning records of phone calls and voicemails, it is raw video that has yet to get meta-tagged to explain its contents, it is blogs and web pages, it's emails and also social media posts in all their forms. Some data that may appear structured (such as sensor data from surveillance and internet of things devices) is still essentially unstructured i.e. 6,000 temperature readings and gyroscope movement records aren't necessarily structured just because they are numbered by sequence; they need to be extracted, parsed, deduplicated and manipulated to become structured for productive use. In so many cases, unstructured data is regarded as an untapped source of real business context, but it is often the hardest to bring in line, the hardest to govern and the toughest to operationalize. Technology analyst house IDC refers to the unclassified morass of information as the 'unseen data conundrum' and estimates that unsiloed reserves of unstructured data now make up 'the majority of enterprise information' today. IDC also suggests that it is more than doubling (growing 55%) each year. These data blind spots are thought to create operational risk and to potentially undermine the value of AI. This is important now because organizations are using unstructured data to power large language models and retrieval-augmented generation applications. There's a whole marketplace structure of unstructured technology toolset vendors today. Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers an entire menu of functions in this space. Amazon Comprehend is a natural language processing and machine learning service capable of extracting metadata, extracting key phrases and determining sentiment from text in multiple languages. AWS positions this service alongside the Amazon Transcribe speech-to-text tools, the quirkily named Amazon Rekognition image and video analysis service… and there's also Amazon Textract, which extracts metadata from scanned documents and images. Given the breadth of AWS services in this market, it would be reasonable to expect similar-but-skewed proprietary versions of these functions in the major cloud service provider hyperscalers. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed, multi-model database with enough intelligence to be able to manage structured, semi-structured and unstructured data. This cloud-native database might be used alongside the playfully named Microsoft Blob Storage service, an object storage service designed for storing large amounts of unstructured data that might exist in images, videos, documents and other binary data. Also from Microsoft, AI Document Intelligence uses machine learning to extract text, key-value pairs, tables and structures from documents automatically. Not to be left out, Google Cloud Platform also works at this level. The cloud and search giant points to its BigQuery brand and the object tables function within it. 'Object tables provides a structured record interface for unstructured data stored in Google Cloud Storage. This enables [users] Given the services that exist as fairly prominent functions in the major cloud providers and from the toolsets that exist from more specialized players, working with unstructured data is clearly now a more pressing need. Often referred to as enterprise content management, ECM is certainly growing in the combined shadow of big data analytics and and rise of artificial intelligence. The natural evolution for a data market like this is the arrival of industry-specific services aligned to industry verticals. Known for its work in unstructured data management across the healthcare industry, Hyland treads a careful line with its messaging as the company clearly wants to be seen as applicable to all use cases. The company says Hyland Content Intelligence turn unstructured data into actionable, AI-ready content with the 2025 arrival of its Knowledge Enrichment (currently in Beta) service being among its star players. Related technologies are also present at IBM in the form of Watson Discovery for unstructured search and AI; Elastic for indexing and querying of unstructured text and logs; Cloudera for Hadoop-based data lake services across unstructured and semi-structured data; Databricks, Collibra, Alation, Palantir and Varonis, to name but a mouthful, there is a lot of structure being applied to the unstructured data space. 'Unstructured data remains a black box for most organizations, [especially] as it becomes critical for AI and business operations,' said Jay Limburn, chief product officer at Ataccama. 'Without a way to structure, govern and trust that information, enterprises risk missing the full value of their data.' Limburn points to his firm's Ataccama One platform as a means to combine data quality, governance, observability, lineage and master data management. Ataccama One is now available on Snowflake Marketplace as a new integration with Document AI, a Snowflake AI feature that uses Arctic-TILT, a proprietary large language model used to extract data from documents. This fusion of data structuring services is billed as a means of turning unstructured content, such as contracts, invoices and PDFs, into structured data by running models directly within Snowflake. Businesspeople can use natural language prompts, such as 'What is the effective date of the contract?', which are then processed by Snowflake to create structured outputs written directly into Snowflake tables. Where does the unstructured marketplace go next? If we accept the proposition that AI services are partly responsible for the surge in this sector (or let's at least call it a sub-surge in a sub-sector), then we might actually see AI services themselves starting to shoulder the responsibility for structuring our unstructuredness. Given the current debate over whether chat-based AI services will take over browser search - and the fact that OpenAI offers GPT-based APIs for text extraction, summarization, semantic intent analysis and classification - that might be exactly what happens.
The Star
13-06-2025
- General
- The Star
Two Malaysians accepted into top US military schools
Doing us proud: Luthfil (left) and Rakis posing together after receiving their official certificates of appointment from Kagan in Kuala Lumpur. — AZMAN GHANI/The Star KUALA LUMPUR: From Malaysia to the elite halls of West Point and Annapolis, two young Malaysians are charting a course into the United States' premier military academies, turning years of ambition and passion into major achievements. Luthfil Haikal Haswadi and Rakis Ruhaim Abdul Rahman have earned coveted places at the US Military Academy in New York and the US Naval Academy in Maryland, respectively. For 19-year-old Luthfil, it all began with a spark. Raised in Dungun, Terengganu, his interest in military history, strategy and geopolitics ignited at just 12. He devoured books on war and revolutionary technology, eventually setting his sights on West Point. That vision shaped his path through school, where he earned 9A+s in SPM, emerged as valedictorian at MRSM Pendang, received the MRSM Academic Excellence Award 2023 and achieved a flawless 4.0 CGPA in foundation studies in Engineering and Technology. He even turned down an offer from Japan's National Defence Academy to pursue what he called a 'deeper dream' at West Point. Now a first-year cadet studying Operations Research and Data Science at Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia, Luthfil also stays active through football, swimming, kayaking and national-level debating. Despite the demands of a military education so far from home, Luthfil says he is ready for the challenge. 'No, I'm excited,' he said yesterday. 'My father was transferred to Saudi Arabia, and I lived there for about nine years, so I'm used to navigating different cultures and backgrounds.' For Rakis, the journey to Annapolis was forged through discipline, sports and international training. A Royal Military College graduate and football captain, Rakis shone both on and off the field. He collected accolades in sports and public speaking, and earned a spot at Germany's Mürwik Naval Academy, where his training included sailing the North Atlantic aboard the training ship Gorch Fock and joining NATO operations on the FGS Bonn in the Mediterranean. Rakis secured a 3.80 CGPA in his foundation studies in Engineering and Technology, and is now preparing to take on the rigours of Annapolis as a midshipman. 'I'll miss my family for sure, but I'm not doing this just for me. It's for them too,' he said. Both cadets were celebrated during a ceremony at the US Ambassador to Malaysia's official residence yesterday, where Ambassador Edgard D. Kagan presented their official certificates of appointment and applauded them for embodying discipline, service and cooperation. 'These young cadets represent the future of our nations. Their selection is a testament to the enduring US-Malaysia Comprehensive Partnership, especially in the areas of defence and security,' he said. Also present was Mej Jen Datuk Reizal Arif Ismail, the Malaysian Armed Forces' Assistant Chief of Staff of Personnel Services. The ambassador also honoured Officer Cadet Mohamad Khairel Adha Mohd Khairee, a recent graduate of the US Air Force Academy and one of 40 Malaysians to complete training at US military academies since 1971. Many go on to serve in senior leadership positions and contribute to regional and global peacekeeping efforts, strengthening not only military cooperation but also the bonds between the two nations.
CBS News
13-06-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Maryland activists expect thousands for peaceful 'No Kings Day' protests Saturday against Trump policies
Protests are scheduled across Maryland Saturday from Annapolis to Bel Air, as part of the nationwide "No Kings" movement to challenge the policies of President Trump. You can find more information on all events here. Baltimore demonstration One of the largest events will be in Patterson Park from 3 pm to 7 pm. "Let's just show up as Baltimoreans and show strength together," said Ellie Rosenstock, who organized it. She told WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren it will be contained within the park and is a way for everyday citizens to gather in solidarity against the Trump Administration. "I really do believe that a lot of us are feeling the same, no matter who we voted for—even if you voted for Donald Trump. I don't personally believe that anyone thought 'Hey, we're going to have military in the streets,' and I don't think anyone thought, 'Hey, we might not have due process of law.' So, I don't think anybody was voting for that," Rosenstock said. Her organization, 'Indivisible Baltimore', started before Trump's inauguration and quickly grew. "Our first meeting, there were five people. The next meeting, there were 25 people. And the next meeting, there were 225 people. Now, we have over 2,000 people who are a part of this," she said. She stressed the event is peaceful and family-friendly. It is set to include Baltimore City Council President Zeke Cohen, Council Member Odette Ramos, and U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen. "Even if you're not a person who is political and you've not gone to a protest before, that's not what this is. We're completely peaceful, regular people just coming out," Rosenstock said. She told Hellgren the event would take place near the observatory and the basin, and at some point, people would march around the park. Military Parade in Washington, D.C. President Trump authorized the multi-million-dollar parade in the nation's capital to celebrate his 79th birthday and the 250th anniversary of the Army. "I don't think the president doing a parade in the middle of Washington, D.C. to coincide with his birthday is the best use of time, energy or resources, but I do think it's important for people to go out and remember what an important contribution the United States Army has made to our nation," Governor Wes Moore, a Democrat, told WJZ Friday. Earlier this week, the government brought in military vehicles by the thousands to Jessup. They will parade through the streets of Washington. "If there's money for a parade, then there's money for Medicaid, so it really kind of says it all right there," Rosenstock remarked. Harford County protest A protest in Bel Air is scheduled from noon to 2 pm Saturday on Churchville Road across from the office of Congressman Andy Harris. "I think we're going to have an amazing turnout, especially in this red area of Harford County. I think it doesn't matter about party at this point. We are talking about the values of our country and how they are being violated over and over and over again," said DeLane Lewis of Together We Will Harford County. "This is a peaceful protest. That is what is happening here—a peaceful exercise of our First Amendment rights, and there will be no violence." Harris is the only Republican in Maryland's Congressional delegation. "For us, our goal is to get the message to Congress—particularly to our Congressman Andy Harris, who has done nothing and has allowed this rampant abuse of executive power with no restraint," Lewis said. WJZ reached out to Harris' office for comment, but he has yet to respond. Maryland Governor Moore's full statement Late Friday, Governor Moore issued the following statement to WJZ about the demonstrations: "Over the weekend, thousands of Marylanders will gather to exercise their guaranteed and hard-fought-for First Amendment freedoms. I swore an oath to protect these sacred rights both when I joined the United States Army and when I was sworn in as the 63rd Governor of Maryland. The ability to freely speak out and assemble is a cornerstone of American democracy—and one of our greatest heirlooms as a state and nation. Multiple departments and agencies of Maryland state government have been carefully monitoring upcoming rallies throughout the week. Safety is our highest priority, and our administration has been in close coordination with both community leaders and law enforcement in service of keeping our people and neighborhoods safe. We are a state that will protect the rights of the people and also uphold the law."
Associated Press
12-06-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
HASI Announces Cash Tender Offer for up to $500 Million Aggregate Principal Amount of 3.375% Senior Notes Due 2026 and 8.00% Green Senior Unsecured Notes Due 2027
ANNAPOLIS, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 12, 2025-- HA Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, Inc. ('HASI') (NYSE: HASI), a leading investor in sustainable infrastructure assets, today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiaries HAT Holdings I LLC, a Maryland limited liability company ('HAT I') and HAT Holdings II LLC, a Maryland limited liability company ('HAT II,' and together with HAT I, the 'Company') commenced a cash tender offer (the 'Tender Offer') to purchase the outstanding notes listed in the table below (collectively, the 'Notes' and each a 'Series' of Notes) having an aggregate principal amount of up to $500,000,000 (as it may be increased or decreased by the Company in accordance with applicable law, the 'Maximum Aggregate Principal Amount'), in the order of priority, and subject to the Series Cap shown in the table below. The terms and conditions of the Tender Offer are described in an Offer to Purchase dated June 12, 2025 (as it may be amended or supplemented, the 'Offer to Purchase'). The Tender Offer is subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions as set forth in the Offer to Purchase, including the receipt of aggregate gross proceeds in an amount sufficient to effect the repurchase of the Notes validly tendered and accepted for purchase pursuant to the Offer to Purchase on or prior to the Early Settlement Date on terms acceptable to the Company from the concurrent public offering of senior debt securities issued by HASI and guaranteed on a senior basis by the Company and certain other of HASI's subsidiaries (the 'Guarantors'). Subject to applicable law, the Company may waive any and all of these conditions or extend, terminate or withdraw the Tender Offer with respect to one or more Series of Notes including increase or decrease the Maximum Aggregate Principal Amount and/or increase, decrease or eliminate the Series Cap at any time, including on or after the Price Determination Date. The Tender Offer is not conditioned upon any minimum amount of Notes being tendered. Capitalized terms used in this news release and not defined herein have the meanings given to them in the Offer to Purchase. The amounts of each Series of Notes that are purchased in the Tender Offer will be determined in accordance with the priorities identified in the column 'Acceptance Priority Level' in the table above and will be subject to the Series Cap. The Tender Offer will expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on July 14, 2025, unless extended (such date and time, as the same may be extended, the 'Expiration Date') or earlier terminated. In order to receive the applicable Total Tender Offer Consideration, holders of Notes subject to the Tender Offer must validly tender and not validly withdraw their Notes before the Early Tender Deadline, which is 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on June 26, 2025, unless extended. Holders of Notes subject to the Tender Offer who validly tender their Notes after the Early Tender Deadline and before the Expiration Date and whose Notes are accepted for purchase will receive the applicable Late Tender Offer Consideration. The applicable Total Tender Offer Consideration for each $1,000 in principal amount of Notes tendered and not withdrawn before the Early Tender Deadline and accepted for payment pursuant to the Tender Offer on the Early Settlement Date (as defined below) will be determined in the manner described in the Offer to Purchase. The consideration will be determined by reference to a fixed spread specified for each Series of Notes over the yield based on the bid-side price of the applicable Reference U.S. Treasury Security specified in the table above, as fully described in the Offer to Purchase. The consideration will be calculated by the Dealer Managers for the Tender Offer at 9:00 a.m., New York City time, on the business day immediately following the Early Tender Deadline, unless extended (such date and time, as the same may be extended, the 'Price Determination Date'). The Price Determination Date is expected to be June 27, 2025. The Early Tender Premium for each Series of Notes is $30 per $1,000 principal amount of Notes. The Late Tender Offer Consideration for the Notes purchased pursuant to the Tender Offer will be calculated by taking the Total Tender Offer Consideration for the applicable Series of Notes and subtracting from it the Early Tender Premium of $30 per $1,000 principal amount of Notes. In addition to the applicable Total Tender Offer Consideration or applicable Late Tender Offer Consideration, as the case may be, accrued and unpaid interest up to, but not including, the applicable Settlement Date will be paid in cash on all validly tendered Notes accepted for purchase in the Tender Offer. The purchase price plus accrued and unpaid interest for Notes that are validly tendered and not validly withdrawn on or before the Early Tender Deadline and accepted for purchase will be paid by the Company in same day funds promptly following the Early Tender Deadline (the 'Early Settlement Date'). The Company expects that the Early Settlement Date will be June 30, 2025, the second business day after the Early Tender Deadline. The purchase price plus accrued and unpaid interest for Notes that are validly tendered after the Early Tender Deadline and on or before the Expiration Date and accepted for purchase will be paid by the Company in same day funds promptly following the Expiration Date (the 'Final Settlement Date'). The Company expects that the Final Settlement Date will be July 16, 2025, the second business day after the Expiration Date, assuming Notes representing an aggregate principal amount equal to the Maximum Aggregate Principal Amount are not purchased on the Early Settlement Date. No tenders will be valid if submitted after the Expiration Date. If Notes are validly tendered and not validly withdrawn having an aggregate principal amount equal to or greater than the Maximum Aggregate Principal Amount as of the Early Tender Deadline, Holders who validly tender Notes after the Early Tender Deadline but on or before the Expiration Date will not have any of their Notes accepted for purchase, subject to the Series Cap. Holders of Notes subject to the Tender Offer who validly tender their Notes on or before the Early Tender Deadline may not withdraw their Notes after 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on June 26, 2025, unless extended (such date and time, as the same may be extended, the 'Withdrawal Deadline'), except in the limited circumstances described in the Offer to Purchase. Holders of Notes subject to the Tender Offer who validly tender their Notes after the Withdrawal Deadline but on or before the Expiration Date may not withdraw their Notes except in the limited circumstances described in the Offer to Purchase. Subject to the Maximum Aggregate Principal Amount and the Series Cap, all Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn at or before the Early Tender Deadline having a higher Acceptance Priority Level will be accepted before any validly tendered and not validly withdrawn Notes having a lower Acceptance Priority Level, and all Notes validly tendered after the Early Tender Deadline having a higher Acceptance Priority Level will be accepted before any Notes tendered after the Early Tender Deadline having a lower Acceptance Priority Level. However, if Notes are validly tendered and not validly withdrawn having an aggregate principal amount less than the Maximum Aggregate Principal Amount as of the Early Tender Deadline, Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn at or before the Early Tender Deadline, subject to the Series Cap, will be accepted for purchase in priority to Notes tendered after the Early Tender Deadline, even if such Notes tendered after the Early Tender Deadline have a higher Acceptance Priority Level than Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn at or before the Early Tender Deadline. Notes of the Series in the last Acceptance Priority Level accepted for purchase in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Tender Offer may be subject to proration so that the Company will only accept for purchase Notes having an aggregate principal amount of up to the Maximum Aggregate Principal Amount. From time to time, the Company may purchase additional Notes in the open market, in privately negotiated transactions, through tender offers or otherwise, or may redeem Notes pursuant to the terms of the applicable indenture governing the applicable Series of Notes. Any future purchases or redemptions may be on the same terms or on terms that are more or less favorable to Holders of Notes than the terms of the Tender Offer. Any future purchases by the Company will depend on various factors existing at that time. There can be no assurance as to which, if any, of these alternatives (or combinations thereof) the Company may choose to pursue in the future. The effect of any of these actions may directly or indirectly affect the price of any Notes that remain outstanding after the consummation or termination of the Tender Offer. Notwithstanding any other provision of the Tender Offer, the Company's obligation to accept for purchase, and to pay for, Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn, if applicable, pursuant to the Tender Offer (up to the Maximum Aggregate Principal Amount, the Series Cap and subject to proration) is subject to, and conditioned upon, the satisfaction of or, where applicable, its waiver of, the General Conditions (as defined below) and the condition that the Company receive aggregate gross proceeds from the Concurrent Notes Offering on or prior to the Early Settlement Date in an amount that is sufficient to effect the repurchase of the Notes validly tendered and accepted for purchase pursuant to this Offer to Purchase, on terms satisfactory to the Company in its sole discretion (the 'Financing Condition'). J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Citigroup Global Markets Inc. are the Dealer Managers for the Tender Offer. D.F. King & Co., Inc. is the Tender Agent and Information Agent. Persons with questions regarding the Tender Offer should contact J.P. Morgan Securities LLC at +1 (866) 834-4666 (toll free) or +1 (212) 834-3554 (collect) or Citigroup Global Markets Inc. (toll-free) at +1 (800) 558-3745 or +1 (212) 723-6106 (collect). Questions regarding the tendering of Notes and requests for copies of the Offer to Purchase and related materials should be directed to D.F. King & Co., Inc. at (212) 269-5550 (for banks and brokers) or (866) 416-0577 (all others, toll-free) or email [email protected]. This news release is neither an offer to purchase nor a solicitation of an offer to sell the Notes. The Tender Offer is made only by the Offer to Purchase and the information in this news release is qualified by reference to the Offer to Purchase dated June 12, 2025. There is no separate letter of transmittal in connection with the Offer to Purchase. None of the Company, HASI, the HASI Board of Directors, the Dealer Managers, the Tender Agent and Information Agent or the trustees with respect to any Notes is making any recommendation as to whether holders should tender any Notes in response to the Tender Offer, and neither Company nor any such other person has authorized any person to make any such recommendation. Holders must make their own decision as to whether to tender any of their Notes, and, if so, the principal amount of Notes to tender. About HASI HASI is an investor in sustainable infrastructure assets advancing the energy transition. With more than $14 billion in managed assets, HASI's investments are diversified across multiple asset classes, including utility-scale solar, onshore wind, and storage; distributed solar and storage; RNG; and energy efficiency. HASI combines deep expertise in energy markets and financial structuring with long-standing programmatic client partnerships to deliver superior risk-adjusted returns and measurable environmental benefits. Forward-Looking Statements:View source version on CONTACT: Investors: Aaron Chew [email protected] 240-343-7526Media: Gil Jenkins [email protected] 443-321-5753 KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA MARYLAND INDUSTRY KEYWORD: ENVIRONMENT UTILITIES SUSTAINABILITY ALTERNATIVE ENERGY GREEN TECHNOLOGY ENERGY SOURCE: HA Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, Inc. Copyright Business Wire 2025. PUB: 06/12/2025 09:22 AM/DISC: 06/12/2025 09:20 AM
