Seattle’s LGBTQ community members say they hope that this Friday’s World Cup “Pride Match” between Egypt and Iran, two countries where homosexuality is criminalized, can be an opportunity to change minds.
Seattle, WA
KJ's Seattle Seahawks Takeaways: 'Night and day' without who?
Sunday will be all or nothing for the Seattle Seahawks.
After losing at home to the Pittsburgh Steelers 30-23 in Week 17, the Seahawks fell to 8-8 on the season, essentially putting themselves in a must-win situation when they go to Arizona for a 1:25 p.m. Sunday contest against the 4-12 Cardinals if they want to make the playoffs.
Playoff Scenarios: How Seattle Seahawks can make the postseason
On Seattle Sports’ weekly K.J. Wright Show during Wednesday’s edition of Brock and Salk, the former Seahawks great shared his thoughts on everything about the team. You can watch video of Wright in studio at the top of this post, or hear the full show in the podcast at this link or in the player below. After that, we’ll detail a few of the more notable observations he shared.
Big missing piece
The Seahawks have been without linebacker Jordyn Brooks since he suffered an ankle injury on Dec. 18 against the Philadelphia Eagles. Wright, himself a one-time Pro Bowl linebacker in his playing days, said it was a clear problem against Pittsburgh. Seattle allowed the Steelers to gain 468 yards of offense, with Pittsburgh running for 202 yards to 88 by the Seahawks’ offense, and the Hawks registering just one sack on the day.
“It was night and day not having Jordyn Brooks out there,” Wright said. “What he’s done since he’s really came on the scene, a guy that’s been a downhill guy, a guy that when he sees it, he shoots it and he takes his shot. And for him just have to deal with that ankle injury – Devin Bush was out there, Bobby (Wagner) was out there, (but) Jordyn for sure was surely missed out there on the football field. And he has to come back this game because the Arizona Cardinals are going to have the same exact game plan.”
What’s wrong with Seattle Seahawks’ run game
The Seahawks have invested in the running back position, drafting Kenneth Walker III and Zach Charbonnet in the second round in back-to-back years, yet they rank fourth from last in the NFL with just 90.1 rushing yards per game.
When Wright was asked about the situation, he put his focus on the offensive line.
“I think we can improve in that position – I think we can get better, interior, with the offensive line,” he said. “I look at K-9 (Walker) – I say this every single week, when K-9 is getting north and south, K-9 is a really, really good football player. He’s a really, really good football player. Zach Charbonnet, he’s got to come along. He has to come along way more and be that 1-2 punch that we need him to be. He got taken in the second round for a reason, and right now we haven’t seen the right production out of him. So can we get some big boys up front?”
Is OC to blame for not converting on third down?
Another statistic on offense where Seattle has struggled is conversion rate on third down, where the Hawks are 25th out of the league’s 32 teams at 35.4%. Does that fall on third-year offensive coordinator Shane Waldron?
Wright didn’t put the blame on Waldron. Instead, he pointed out how not being fully in sync can impact just about everything.
“What do you do when you try to run the ball and it’s not effective? When you’re get stalemated at the line of scrimmage?” he said. “And then on top of that, you can’t even get the run game going because you’re (bottom quarter) in the league when it comes to third down. So I look at Shane, I feel like he’s trying to run the ball, but K-9, O-line, give me something. Geno (Smith), I need you to keep me going on third down so I can come back to it. And so I look at football, everything’s connected – the play-calling, the third down, the O-line, the run game. Everything has got to be in sync.”
The K.J. Wright Show airs from 8-9 a.m. live Wednesdays during the football season during Seattle Sports’ Brock Salk. Click here for podcasts of every episode.
More on the Seattle Seahawks
• Notebook: Pete Carroll updates injuries, laments run game
• What Carroll Said: Seahawks’ run D, tackling, onside kick and more
• Instant Reaction: Seahawks’ loss to Steelers hurts playoff odds
• Rost: Seattle Seahawks are in playoff picture, but story is D’s woes
Seattle, WA
Council eyes street barricades in fight against violence, sex trafficking in north Seattle
SEATTLE — The Seattle City Council is expected to vote next week on a plan that would give the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) the authority to close off street access for public safety reasons.
The proposal comes after months of outcry from residents in north Seattle who say sex traffickers and sex buyers are looping through the streets surrounding Aurora Avenue North.
The street-closure proposal passed the council’s Public Safety Committee on Tuesday and is expected to be voted on by the full council next week.
“I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say the crime has gotten much worse, much more violent, and much more predator,” said District 5 councilmember Debora Juarez. “I think that we do have the authority to shut down a street for bullets flying and endangering the lives of those who live there.”
Frustrated neighbors have installed their own homemade barricades after a spate of gun violence between sex traffickers in May.
RELATED | SDOT removes street barricades near Aurora Ave; neighbors doubtful of temporary measures
Councilmember Bob Kettle says street closures will help tamp down sex buying in certain areas, but he emphasizes it must be accompanied by an increase in outreach and enforcement.
“We have to have a sustained effort,” Kettle told KOMO News. “My concern is for every action, there’s a reaction. We need to take this flex and then really attack it … because if we do just a bit and our attention wanders, we could have this conversation three months from now and we’re talking about the same thing.”
A 15-year-old boy was shot near 95th Street and Aurora Avenue North around 10:45 p.m. last night. The teen initially claimed he had been shot while walking down the street, but investigators now say he was shot by a passenger in his car.
RELATED | Seattle police say ‘drive-by’ on Aurora Ave. was actually passenger shooting teen driver
Kettle credited the city’s Real Time Crime Center cameras with helping investigators quickly piece together the events of the shooting.
“Just as important to finding out what happened, the cameras help police determine what did not happen,” Kettle said.
According to Seattle police data, reports of shootings and shots fired in the north precinct area are at their lowest levels since 2021.
Through the end of May, there were 48 total reports of shootings or shots fired, with one fatal shooting and seven nonfatal injury shootings.
That’s down from 63 total reports of shootings and shots fired – one fatal and seven injuries – in 2025; and 64 shootings or shots fired reports – one fatal and 17 injuries – in 2024.
At Tuesday’s committee meeting, councilmembers pointed out residents are calling for a new police precinct to be built on Aurora Avenue.
Ten years ago, a new North Precinct building was slated to be built at 130th Avenue and Aurora Avenue North to replace the existing precinct building, which was decades old and did not have enough space for the department’s needs.
Led by former councilmember Kshama Sawant, the “Block the Bunker” movement successfully got the North Precinct replacement project killed in city council.
Kettle said the city’s current financial issues make it essentially impossible to bring back a project similar to the one the previous council defeated.
“We have to connect the dots back,” Kettle said. “If we want to know why we are where we are today, we have to look at decisions made over the last two councils.”
Seattle, WA
Iran and Egypt to play in Seattle ‘Pride Match’ despite earlier complaints | The Jerusalem Post
Seattle revels in its reputation as a welcoming place and Pride flags are visible all over the city, all year round. Its June Pride weekend is one of the biggest in the United States.
So, ahead of December’s World Cup draw, it was only natural that local organizers designated the June 26 match to be held in the city as a “Pride Match.”
Then the draw happened — and the two teams scheduled to play the game were Egypt and Iran.
Egypt’s Football Association urged global soccer governing body FIFA to prevent any Pride-related activities, arguing such events clashed with the Muslim-majority country’s cultural and religious values. The governing body in Iran, where same-sex relations can carry the death penalty, filed an objection with FIFA.
Some in Seattle have doubts over the teams in the ‘Pride Match’
But in Seattle, there is no question that the Pride Match will go ahead as planned.
“The World Cup is going to come and go in three weeks,” Hedda McLendon, from Seattle’s local World Cup organizing committee, told Reuters. “The Pride celebration … has happened on this weekend for 50-plus years.
“It is going to happen this weekend, it is going to happen long after the World Cup.”
Some in the city’s LGBTQ community had mixed feelings given the participants, said Jon Cairns, 49, manager of local LGBTQ+ club Kremwerk.
Cairns, however, said his own view was that it provided a platform to promote acceptance that only the world’s biggest sporting event could offer.
“My reaction is let’s have them,” he told Reuters. “International sports is one of the biggest brokers historically of social change and individual rights and freedoms worldwide, including in the U.S.”
He cited black U.S. sprinter Jesse Owens’ four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany and Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ raised-fist protest in 1968 as moments where “only international sports could reach that big of an audience.”
“They’re not going to turn off the World Cup on state television in Iran or Egypt to block out a Pride flag in the audience,” Cairns said.
The Pride Match is “a host city initiative” and separate of FIFA, a spokesperson for soccer’s governing body told Reuters.
Seattle’s LGBTQ community sees an opportunity
Egypt and Iran’s involvement in the Pride Match is not the first time the World Cup has grappled with stark differences in attitudes between hosts and visitors.
In 2022 World Cup host Qatar, the emir said visitors should “respect our culture” when asked about gay people attending the tournament.
FIFA threatened yellow cards for captains wearing the “OneLove” armband, citing its rules against political slogans. Teams including England and the Netherlands that had been planning to wear the armbands to protest Qatar’s laws against same-sex relationships abandoned the plan.
For Ryan Webster, a 40-year-old lifestyle manager who was at Kremwerk the weekend before Pride, Seattle’s “Pride Match” was an opportunity to show solidarity with people in countries where their sexuality was outlawed.
“I’m choosing to believe that this is our moment to allow the members of the LGBTQ community that come from those countries to have the opportunity to celebrate themselves in totality that they might not have otherwise,” he said outside the club, which will host a watch party for Friday’s game.
Inside, ‘Venus Fengz’ lip-synced to Cher’s “Believe” before introducing fellow drag performers to the stage, clapped and cheered by a raucous crowd.
Fengz, who only wanted to provide their stage name, said Pride coinciding with the World Cup would bring increased visibility, anticipating perhaps some new audience members.
“I think it’s always great for us to be able to share space and share places with people who don’t have the same experiences as us,” they told Reuters.
“Sometimes you just have to be the bigger person and show grace where you can and know that everyone is a human learning (from) different experiences, but also it can get hard — because you’re on the shorter end of the stick, always trying to have to explain yourself around people who don’t grow up with the same worldview.”
LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — Las Vegas could be years away from landing an NBA expansion team, but the league’s commissioner is now offering a clearer sense of the timeline.
On Tuesday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told “The Dan Patrick Show” that Seattle and Las Vegas remain the cities the NBA is focused on if it expands. “If we expand, at least we’re thinking ’28-29 season,” Silver said.
Silver had previously signaled before that March meeting that Seattle and Las Vegas were at the center of the expansion discussion, while cautioning that no decision had been made.
“We will make decisions in 2026,” Silver said in February.
At the time, Silver said the league was not expected to vote in March but could emerge from those meetings ready to take the next step and begin discussions with potential ownership groups.
Las Vegas has long been viewed as Seattle’s most likely expansion partner if the NBA grows from 30 to 32 teams. Silver, however, has repeatedly said the league could expand by two teams, one team, or not at all.
The potential of an NBA Las Vegas expansion team has already drawn interest. This week, majority owner of the Vegas Golden Knights, Bill Foley, announced he is putting together a bid for the expansion team in Las Vegas.
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