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
Insider: What to watch from Seattle Seahawks' Week 12 opponent
After a big win over the San Francisco 49ers, the Seattle Seahawks are set for another important divisional clash.
Macdonald previews Seattle Seahawks’ pivotal NFC West clash vs Cardinals
The Seahawks host the NFC West-leading Arizona Cardinals (6-4) with a chance to move into at least a tie for first place in the division. Seattle (5-5) is currently in a three-way tie for second place with both the 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams.
If Seattle can pull off the win and both San Francisco and Los Angeles lose, it would take over sole possession of first place via the head-to-head tiebreaker over Arizona. The Seahawks and Cardinals meet again on Dec. 8.
The Cardinals, winners of four straight, are one of the surprise teams in the league this season. After finishing in a four-way tie for the second-worst record in the league last season, they’ve already surpassed their four wins from a season ago and have their latest division lead since being tied for first with the Rams in Week 15 of the 2021 season.
With Arizona on the docket for the first time this season, AZCardinals.com senior writer Darren Urban shared his insight on the Cardinals with Stacy Rost and Seahawks Radio Network analysts Michael Bumpus and Dave Wyman during The Huddle on Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy.
Kyler Murray playing at a high level
Arizona has been much improved on offense with dual-threat quarterback Kyler Murray fully healthy, but that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
With Murray out for the first nine weeks of last season, the Cardinals stumbled to a 1-8 start while averaging just 16.8 points per game. After his return, they went 3-5 while averaging 22.8 points.
Murray is playing at a high level this year in his first full season since tearing his ACL in December of the 2022 season. He’s completing passes at a career-high 69.2% clip with 2,058 yards, 12 touchdowns and three interceptions, while adding another 371 yards and four touchdowns on the ground.
“I don’t know if I’ll necessarily call it a career year yet. (We) obviously still got half the season to go, but he’s definitely in a different space than he’s been in before,” Urban said. “He might have had more gaudy numbers once upon a time, but he fits so well in the offense that they’re running here with offensive coordinator Drew Petzing, and the fact that it’s kind of coming together at a perfect time, really kind of escalates how he looks and how he’s performing. Don’t get me wrong, Kyler is playing at a very high level right now. They just don’t always need him to be Superman like he once was.”
Arizona is tied for 11th in scoring this season at 23.8 points per game with Murray leading the charge. Part of what’s made him so effective this year is his improved ability to take care of the football. He’s on pace for a career-low 1.1% interception rate.
“He’s done a really good job of taking care of the football,” Urban said. “When you add that in with the least amount of penalties the Cardinals have got – the Cardinals have the fewest amount of penalties of anybody in the NFL – that goes a long way in helping you try and win games. So Kyler Murray is in a good place right now. He’s 100% back from the knee injury from a couple of years ago. He looks like it when he moves around. He’s throwing the ball exceptionally well. And this offense is coming around.”
The ‘heart and soul’ of Arizona’s offense
While Murray’s play has been key, Urban described veteran running back James Conner as the “heart and soul of the offense.”
“Since (head coach) Jonathan Gannon came in, they prefer to be a run-first offense,” Urban said. “(It) doesn’t mean they won’t throw, to the contrary, but in a perfect world James Conner is getting the ball a lot and they are grinding out yards on the ground.”
The 29-year-old Conner has been a versatile weapon for Arizona this season and is 11th in the NFL with 944 yards from scrimmage. He’s rushed for 697 yards and five touchdowns on 4.4 yards per carry and added another 247 yards on 24 receptions. The Pittsburgh product has eclipsed 100 yards rushing in four games and produced at least 100 yards from scrimmage in six.
“The way he plays football feels very old-school. It feels very 1977 kind of feel to it as a running back, and you don’t get that a lot anymore. When he does well, it does seem to energize this entire team,” Urban said. “Not a lot of people know James Conner – most (do) from his years in Pittsburgh – but there’s no question that he has played his best football since he came to Arizona in these last couple of years. Even as he’s getting older as a running back, he seems to be getting better.”
The combination of Conner and Murray in the running game means this Cardinals squad is better suited for the chilly conditions it’s set to face Sunday in Seattle.
“If they’re playing the game that they want to play, they’re going to be able to control the ball on offense a little bit and they’re going to be able to run it,” Urban said. “One of the things that has always kind of … followed this team where it plays, if you go back to the heydays of the Kurt Warner Cardinals, is they can win if they’re not in a dome. … This team can do that.”
Improving defense
After being among the league’s worst defenses last season, the Cardinals have resembled more of a league-average unit this season under second-year defensive coordinator Nick Rallis.
The biggest strides the unit has made have come against the run. Arizona was last in the NFL in rushing defense last season and is up to 19th in 2024. The defense also has been better at forcing turnovers, jumping from tied for 27th to tied for 16th with 11 so far this season.
The Cardinals are coming off two of their best defensive performances, allowing a combined 15 points and no touchdowns in wins over Chicago Bears and New York Jets.
“The last two games where they haven’t given up a touchdown, you’re playing at home, you’re playing against the Jets and the Bears – two teams that I’m pretty sure are not going to be going anywhere past the end of the regular season, so you have to factor in some context,” Urban said. “But this team was always defensively about doing a solid job and hopefully having the offense pick them up in spots.
“What has happened over this four-game winning streak in a lot of ways is the defense has done more than just hold its own, and that’s an important factor when you talk about a group that doesn’t have a lot of big names.”
With that being said, the unit is still susceptible to give up yards. It’s just been good at limiting points in the red zone, ranking ninth in the league with an opponents’ red-zone touchdown percentage of just 48.6%.
“(The defense is) an area of the roster that I’m sure (general manger) Monti Ossenfort wants to continue to upgrade, but they are playing at a pretty high level and it’s kind of the epitome of bend but not break,” Urban said. “I mean, they’re going to give up some yards, but they’ve been keeping teams out of the end zone, and that’s gone a long way for them to win games.”
Listen to the full conversation at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Tune in to The Huddle from noon-2 p.m. on Thursday’s before Sunday Seahawks games for two full hours of in-depth coverage on the team.
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SEATTLE — Seattle police are investigating a shooting that left a 17-year-old boy injured early Thursday morning in the High Point neighborhood.
At about 12:48 a.m., dispatchers received multiple reports of rapid gunfire near Sylvan Way Southwest and Southwest Morgan Street.
Officers arrived and found a 17-year-old boy suffering from a gunshot wound to the hip area. Medics transported the teen to Harborview Medical Center in serious but stable condition.
Before officers located the victim, they found a car that had crashed and become disabled near Sylvan Way Southwest and Delridge Way Southwest. Police said multiple suspects were seen running from the vehicle through a nearby Home Depot parking lot.
Officers cordoned off the area and searched for the suspects with assistance from the K-9 Unit, but were unable to locate them. Police recovered the vehicle and impounded it for processing.
During the incident, gunfire struck at least three vehicles and two buildings. No other injuries were reported.
Officers processed multiple nearby scenes and recovered evidence before clearing the area. Detectives with the Gun Violence Reduction Unit will lead the investigation.
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.”
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