Arsenal, Liverpool and Newcastle progress in English League Cup to ensure powerful lineup for semis

Arsenal, Newcastle and Liverpool advanced in the English League Cup on Wednesday to ensure a heavyweight lineup for the semifinals.

Gabriel Jesus scored a hat trick — including a crucial second goal from an offside position — as Arsenal beat Crystal Palace 3-2 to reach the last four for the first time since the 2021-22 season.

Liverpool kept alive its title defense by winning 2-1 at Southampton, with Darwin Nunez and Harvey Elliott the scorers in the first half for the leaders of the Premier League and Champions League.

Newcastle defeated Brentford 3-1 mainly thanks to two first-half goals by Italy midfielder Sandro Tonali and progressed to the semifinals for the second time in three seasons. The Saudi-controlled club from the north east, which hasn't won a major trophy since 1955, lost in the League Cup final to Manchester United in 2023.

United visits Tottenham on Thursday in the remaining quarterfinal match, guaranteeing that the semifinals will feature four of the biggest teams in the country.

Jesus had previously only scored one goal in 20 appearances in all competitions this season — and that was also in the English League Cup at second-tier Preston in October.

So the Brazil striker's first hat trick for Arsenal came as something of a surprise, as did the standard of his finishing.

There was luck for Jesus, too, as replays showed that he was offside when running through to score his goal that made it 2-1 in the 73rd minute at Emirates Stadium. However, there is no video review until the semifinals of the competition so the goal wasn't ruled out.

Jesus, who had equalized in the 54th with an excellently taken chip over goalkeeper Dean Henderson, completed his hat trick in the 81st by running through unmarked and smashing a low strike past Henderson.

That give his team a two-goal cushion but former Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah ensured a nervy finish by heading home a cross in the 85th to make it 3-1. Jean-Philippe Mateta had put Palace ahead in the fourth minute.

Liverpool has now gone 20 games unbeaten within a single season in all competitions for the first time since 1996, according to Premier League stats supplier Opta.

Things could hardly be going any better for Arne Slot, who fielded a weakened, heavily rotated team — featuring Japan midfielder Wataru Endo at center back — that still had too much for Southampton.

Nunez particularly enjoyed his goal, which came after he had been jeered by Southampton fans for missing an early chance. After putting Liverpool ahead, he put his finger to his mouth in a “shush” gesture to the home crowd.

Interim coach Simon Rusk took charge of Southampton, the last-place team in the Premier League, following the dismissal of manager Russell Martin on Sunday — hours after a 5-0 loss to Tottenham.

Slot sat in the stands for the match at St. Mary's stadium as he was serving a touchline suspension after getting booked for the third time this season last weekend.

Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80

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Arsenal's Gabriel Jesus scores a hat-trick and his side's third goal during the English League Cup quarterfinal soccer match between Arsenal and Crystal Palace at Emirates stadium, in London, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Newcastle United's Sandro Tonali celebrates scoring their side's first goal of the game during the Carabao Cup quarter-final match at St. James' Park, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, Wednesday Dec. 18, 2024. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP)

Liverpool's Darwin Nunez scores during the English Football Lague Cup soccer match between Southampton and Liverpool in Southampton, England, on Wednesday, Dec.18, 2024. (AP Photo/Sean Ryan)

Liverpool's Harvey Elliott celebrates after scoring during the English Football Lague Cup soccer match between Southampton and Liverpool in Southampton, England, on Wednesday, Dec.18, 2024. (AP Photo/Sean Ryan)

Liverpool's Darwin Nunez celebrates after scoring during the English Football Lague Cup soccer match between Southampton and Liverpool in Southampton, England, on Wednesday, Dec.18, 2024. (AP Photo/Sean Ryan)

Arsenal's Gabriel Jesus scores his side's third goal during the English League Cup quarterfinal soccer match between Arsenal and Crystal Palace at Emirates stadium in London, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (Mike Egerton/PA via AP)

Arsenal's Gabriel Jesus celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the English League Cup quarterfinal soccer match between Arsenal and Crystal Palace at Emirates stadium, in London, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Arsenal's Gabriel Jesus celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the English League Cup quarterfinal soccer match between Arsenal and Crystal Palace at Emirates stadium, in London, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)