CARSON, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 31, 2025--
KB Home (NYSE: KBH), one of the largest and most trusted homebuilders in the U.S., today announced the grand opening of Willow, which offers homebuyers a rare opportunity to own a new single-family home in Carson, California, a prime South Bay location close to popular beaches and employment centers. These new homes are designed for the way people live today, with popular design features like modern kitchens overlooking large great rooms, expansive bedroom suites with walk-in closets, and ample storage space. The community’s two-story floor plans feature up to four bedrooms and three baths. Homeowners will appreciate the private backyards, planned on-site amenities, which include a children’s playground and outdoor lounge with barbecues as well as the proximity to local schools.
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What sets KB Home apart is the company’s focus on building strong, personal relationships with every customer, so they have a real partner in the homebuying process. Every KB home is uniquely built for each customer, so no two KB homes are the same. Homebuyers have the ability to personalize their new home, from floor plans to exterior styles to where they live in the community. Their home comes to life in the KB Home Design Studio, a one-of-a-kind experience where customers get both expert advice and the opportunity to select from a wide range of design choices that fit their style and their budget. Reflecting the company's commitment to creating an exceptional homebuying experience, KB Home is the #1 customer-ranked national homebuilder based on homebuyer satisfaction surveys from a leading third-party review site.
“We are pleased to offer Los Angeles–area homebuyers a rare opportunity to purchase a spacious new single-family home in a sought-after South Bay location close to popular beaches and employment centers," said Keltie Cole, President of KB Home’s Los Angeles and Ventura Counties division. “Willow is walking distance to downtown Carson, which offers boutique shopping and dining. Homeowners will also appreciate the private backyards, planned on-site amenities, which include a children’s playground and outdoor lounge with barbecues and proximity to local schools. At KB Home, we’re here to help you achieve your dream with a personalized new home built uniquely for you and your life.”
Innovative design plays an essential role in every home KB builds. The company’s floor plans inspire contemporary living, with a focus on roomy, light-filled spaces that have easy indoor/outdoor flow. KB homes are engineered to be highly energy and water efficient and include features that support healthier indoor environments. They are also designed to be ENERGY STAR ® certified — a standard that fewer than 10% of new homes nationwide meet — offering greater comfort, well-being and utility cost savings than new homes without certification.
Willow is situated in a commuter-friendly location that offers homebuyers an exceptional lifestyle. The new community is located just west of Grace Street on East 220th Street, providing easy access to Interstates 110 and 405, downtown Los Angeles, Los Angeles International Airport, Long Beach Airport and the area’s major employers, including, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Honeywell Aerospace, Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems, Northrop Grumman and Pelican™ Products. Homeowners will appreciate Willow’s proximity to shopping, dining and entertainment at SouthBay Pavilion Mall, South Bay Galleria and Carson Town Square. The new neighborhood is also walking distance to several public parks and minutes away from outdoor recreation, including popular beaches, golf courses and the Long Beach Shoreline Marina.
The Willow sales office and model home are open for walk-in visits and private in-person tours by appointment. Homebuyers also have the flexibility to arrange a live video tour with a sales counselor. Pricing begins from the mid $900,000s.
For more information on KB Home, call 888-KB-HOMES or visit kbhome.com.
About KB Home
KB Home is one of the largest and most trusted homebuilders in the United States. We operate in 47 markets, have built over 680,000 quality homes in our more than 65-year history, and are honored to be the #1 customer-ranked national homebuilder based on third-party buyer surveys. What sets KB Home apart is building strong, personal relationships with every customer and creating an exceptional experience that offers our homebuyers the ability to personalize their home based on what they value at a price they can afford. As the industry leader in sustainability, KB Home has achieved one of the highest residential energy-efficiency ratings and delivered more ENERGY STAR ® certified homes than any other builder, helping to lower the total cost of homeownership. For more information, visit kbhome.com.
KB Home announces the grand opening of Willow, which offers homebuyers a rare opportunity to own a new single-family home in Carson, California, a prime South Bay location close to popular beaches and employment centers. (Photo: Business Wire)
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)
