Latest news with #Testa
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Officials provide updates on Sacramento's tourism industry
( — Visit Sacramento hosted its annual State of Tourism event this morning. Tourism officials shared the latest updates on our region's travel and hospitality industry and unveiled an exciting new food event launching this year. Visit Sacramento staff, congress members, airport officials from SMF, and city and county leaders gathered today to share the updates inside the Safe Credit Union Convention Center. 'Now is the moment. We can feel it. Things are happening, and we're going to take this moment and run away with it,' said Congresswoman Doris Matsui. Sacramento's tourism industry made a strong comeback after the COVID-19 pandemic. It's now generating $4 billion annually. Sac State PD looking for arson suspect who fled on foot 'We attract more than 15 million visitors a year. They spend millions of dollars into our economy, and it creates tens of thousands of jobs in Sacramento,' said Mike Testa, Visit Sacramento's President and CEO. In 2024, local businesses brought in $148 million from visitor spending, while other tourism markets across California slumped. Testa says the Sacramento region's wide variety of events and attractions is keeping tourism strong. 'When one industry may be down, like conventions, sports picks it up, or music festivals pick it up.' The local industry continues to grow, even after two significant events, X-Games and Golden Sky, were paused this year. Although Testa says both are expected to return, 'Certainly losing Golden Sky this year isn't a great thing.' Fairfield man indicted for failing to pay over $2 million in employment taxes 'The good news is it's a pause. We expect it to be back in 2026,' said Testa. 'X Games is an event that we had hosted before. While we hate that it's postponed a year, it's still coming back.' Filling the gap left by those events, Visit Sacramento announced a brand new addition: Terra Madre Americas. 'It's the largest food conference in Europe,' Testa explained. 'It attracts 300,000 people from 120 different countries in Torino, Italy. We are bringing that event to Sacramento.' Ed Roehr, Co-Director of Slow Food Sacramento, helped bring the event here. He says Terra Madre will showcase our region's food scene to the world. 'Bringing out producers, makers, and farmers from around the states and America here. Offering interesting perspectives on food and food values. I think it's going to be fantastic,' Roehr said. With other West Coast tourism cities struggling, Sacramento is moving forward thanks to new events and plenty of unique experiences. 'I think Sacramento is in a really good place,' Testa said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Yahoo
Banned driver who drove home from court sentenced
A motorist who drove home from court immediately after being banned from getting behind the wheel has been sentenced again. Matthew Testa, 51, was disqualified for six months during a hearing at Harrogate Magistrates' Court on 18 December, but despite being warned the ban was effective immediately, he got in his Porsche and started driving home. Just over half an hour later, officers stopped Testa, from Whalley, in Lancashire, on the A59 near Skipton and he was charged with driving while disqualified and driving without insurance or MOT. At Sheffield Magistrates' Court on Friday, he pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 10 weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months. He was also fined £1,254 and disqualified from driving for 58 weeks. After the sentencing, North Yorkshire Police prosecutor Catherine Coady said: "Testa knew he had been disqualified from driving, but within minutes he was back behind the wheel. "He showed a total disregard for the court, and as a direct result of his actions he now faces a far longer driving ban." Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North. HM Courts & Tribunals Service
BBC News
02-05-2025
- BBC News
Banned driver who drove home from Harrogate court sentenced
A motorist who drove home from court immediately after being banned from getting behind the wheel has been sentenced again. Matthew Testa, 51, was disqualified for six months during a hearing at Harrogate Magistrates' Court on 18 December, but despite being warned the ban was effective immediately, he got in his Porsche and started driving home. Just over half an hour later, officers stopped Testa, from Whalley, in Lancashire, on the A59 near Skipton and he was charged with driving while disqualified and driving without insurance or MOT. At Sheffield Magistrates' Court on Friday, he pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 10 weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months. He was also fined £1,254 and disqualified from driving for 58 weeks. After the sentencing, North Yorkshire Police prosecutor Catherine Coady said: "Testa knew he had been disqualified from driving, but within minutes he was back behind the wheel. "He showed a total disregard for the court, and as a direct result of his actions he now faces a far longer driving ban." Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
CBS News
01-04-2025
- Business
- CBS News
A's have officially arrived. What will it take to permanently bring MLB to Sacramento?
WEST SACRAMENTO — Monday's home opener for the A's was the first time they played on West Sacramento soil. From first pitch, and for the next three years, this is a trial run for the Sacramento region before the A's move to Las Vegas. But the region is already buzzing with speculation: Can we prove our worth and convince the MLB to bring a permanent team to town? "I think over the next three years or so, we do have the opportunity to show that a team belongs in Sacramento full time," said Mike Testa of Visit Sacramento. For Testa, the momentum is there, but what will the MLB look for? Sports economist Patrick Rische said that Sacramento's competition for a new team will be cities like Portland, Salt Lake City and Nashville. "If you [fill stadiums] at the higher price point, it does send a pretty strong message to MLB that maybe there is more support in this market than they realize," Rische said. Look at the Sacramento Kings and you'll find a faithful fan base plus deep pockets. Kings owner Vivek Ranadive also owns the Sacramento River Cats and Sutter Health Park . The River Cats are the San Francisco Giants' Triple-A affiliate and will share Sutter Health Park with the A's during their tenure in the city. Ranadive has expressed early interest in owning an MLB team in the Sacramento region. What Rische argues Sacramento lacks is enough corporate sponsors. "Unless they have someone like Vivek to come in and say, 'I want to put down the expansion fee and I'm willing to build the stadium,' then it just makes Sacramento less attractive," Rische said. Testa said he believes the Sacramento Kings and their downtown home, the Golden 1 Center "have demonstrated there is a path to that." "You've got a lot of corporate sponsorship in that building, whether it's people buying suites or buying lofts or advertising in the building," he added. So this season, Sacramento has something to prove. "You can't look at Sacramento and say we are not doing big things. We are doing big things," Testa said. "I think the exclamation point for that becomes the A's." When it comes to other resume builders for the Sacramento region, right now, the city is building a new minor league soccer stadium in the nearby railyards. It's hosting the X Games for the next three summers . Also, this summer is the release of a major movie called "Sacramento." Every fall, the city is home to the largest hard rock festival on the west coast , plus the biggest Ironman race in the country. These are things that Testa and Visit Sacramento, when they marketi our region nationally, will bring up. The A's can be added to that list now.
CBS News
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
This greater Boston area musical encourages the audience to sing along
A unique piece of theater, where everyone is encouraged to participate and sing along, is helping to build a community. In American Repertory Theater's production of "Night Side Songs," the actors aren't on a traditional stage, but in the center of a circle, surrounded by the audience. Director Taibi Magar says, "It's the story of one woman's journey through illness, but it's also about so much more." "It's a communal music-theater experience," one that Magar says "really requires a huge amount of intimacy with the performance." She and the show's writers, Daniel and Patrick Lazour, started working on the piece before the pandemic. But Magar says the experience of COVID helped refine it. "It's about what it is to go through that illness journey, but it's also a celebration of caretakers, and both the professional ones, doctors, nurses, but also the family and friends," Magar said. "The Lazours and I did a series of interviews with local doctors and nurses involved in the Harvard community, and it was a transformative process. I don't think without those interviews we would have ended up where we were." Multiple Tony-nominee Mary Testa is in the cast. The cancer-survivor feels the material is easy to connect to. "No one is free and clear from grief or stress or trauma or any of that stuff. And if you are, then you are incredibly lucky, but no one gets out of this without experiencing some form of that or having to care for someone," Testa said. Magar says, while the subject matter is serious, the Lazours' script holds a lot of joy. "They've found silliness, they've found all the little weird things about life that are just ironic and funny." Testa says it all comes down to connection. "It's a beautiful thing, and it is really like a gathering," Testa said. Magar agrees, saying, "We are in a loneliness epidemic, you know, the nature of the world right now, and I think this piece brings people closer to each other…. It's been so moving at the end, when you just watch people just grab one another, just gently want to hold on tight to each other, audiences that don't know each other, exchanging a few words or a glance, everyone feels much closer to each other by the end. I think we really need that more than ever." You can see "Night Side Songs" at two locations. The piece will be at the Cambridge Masonic Temple through Sunday, April 6. Then between April 8 and 20, it heads to Hibernian Hall in Roxbury.
