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
Seattle Mariners' Bullpen Check-In: Good and bad updates
Coming into spring training, it wasn’t hard to make a good guess at what the Seattle Mariners’ bullpen would be heading into the season.
Seattle Mariners Notebook: Prospect debut, latest on Julio
If you did the math, looked at who was returning, the minor-league option situation and specific needs, the picture was clear. Barring injury, there was maybe one spot open. The bullpen all but complete, and a bullpen drawing high marks from the projections.
Oh, how quickly things can change.
Less than a week into full-squad action in Arizona, two-thirds of the back end of the bullpen landed on the shelf due to soreness after early bullpen sessions.
The good news: Gregory Santos appears to be on the mend.
The bad news: the uncertainty on Matt Brash’s situation, with updates being pushed further and further out.
Who could step up in Seattle Mariners’ bullpen?
There should indeed be concern about Brash’s injury as he was set to be a vital part of the Mariners’ bullpen in 2024. It is looking more and more likely another bullpen spot will be open at the beginning of the season, and a few of the competitors – ones that are lesser known but fall into the “bucket” of pitchers who have stuff that perhaps with a tweak or a nudge from the Mariners pitching staff/lab could turn potential into needed production – had strong first outings the last two days.
“(Jackson) Kowar was outstanding as was (Collin) Snider,” manager Scott Servais said following the Mariners’ 9-7 Cactus League loss to the Royals on Wednesday afternoon (box score here). “Some good signs there obviously.”
Kowar, acquired from the Braves in the trade involving Jarred Kelenic, Marco Gonzales and Evan White, had a 1-2-3 third inning and fanned one while facing his former team, the Royals. Snider, also a former Royal, needed just seven pitches to get through the sixth.
“The are very different pitchers,” Servais said. “Kowar, it’s a little bit bigger fastball, you will see it up to 98 mph, outstanding changeup. The biggest thing with him is he’s got to get strike 1. He did it today. Snider threw seven pitches and they are all strikes.”
On Tuesday, it was Carlos Vargas, part of of the return from Arizona in the Eugenio Suárez, who impressed.
“He threw the ball really good,” Servais said of the one-inning outing. “The fastball is unique. It’s cutting, it’s sinking. His go-to pitch is the slider. Even his misses were very close. It’s a good sign first time out there.”
Vargas comes to the Mariners as a 24 year old with very good stuff but command issues, having walked 97 batters in 188 2/3 innings in the minors. The four-seam fastball sat at 99 mph last year but got hit at a .400 average in his five big league appearances. That fastball did not make an appearance against the Giants in Scottsdale on Tuesday. Rather, he utilized a three-pitch mix – two-seam fastball, cutter and slider – to good success.
“I was trying to attack the strike zone,” Vargas said through interpreter Freddy Llanos. “I have a lot more confidence in my pitches and it has been a lot of fun.”
The cutter is relatively new, with Vargas deciding after 2022 he needed to find another pitch to get hitters out. The slider has been his baby.
“The slider is something I have always worked on,” he said with a smile. “It’s one of those pitches that I am proud of. I feel I can throw it in any situation and get the results.”
While he did not hit the upper 90s Tuesday, all three pitches had a ton of movement and generated some silly swings from the lefty he faced. The tweaks that the Mariners have made with him so far have been simple, according to Vargas.
“Just throw the ball in the middle and attack, attack, attack,” he said.
Words and results Servais no doubt is happy to hear and see.
“They are buying into the program, they’re getting great results, and we are going to need them,” he said. “These guys have great arms and we are going to be seeing them throughout the season.”
Seattle Mariners bullpen update: RHP Gregory Santos
News on Santos is good. The 24-year-old right-hander played catch Tuesday for the first time since being shut down with lat soreness. The session went well with Servais calling the report “awesome,” and that the trainer who caught him said he wouldn’t catch him again. Rather, he would have a bullpen catcher do it. In other words, he was throwing hard.
Santos was acquired earlier this month in a trade with the Chicago White Sox after an impressive 2023 campaign.
More M’s coverage
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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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