Liverpool beats Everton 1-0 to restore 12-point lead in the Premier League

Diogo Jota scored the goal that settled the Merseyside derby on Wednesday and kept Liverpool's Premier League title challenge on track.

The Portugal international's second-half strike sealed a 1-0 win at Anfield and restored Liverpool's 12-point lead over Arsenal at the top of the standings.

With just eight games remaining this season, this was one of the biggest hurdles standing in the way of a record-equalling 20th English title for Arne Slot's team. And it was Jota who came up with the decisive moment in the 57th minute when he twisted his way through the box and lashed a shot past Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.

Fourth-placed Manchester City was without the injured Erling Haaland but still beat Leicester 2-0 to stay one point ahead of Newcastle in the race for Champions League qualification. Newcastle, in fifth, beat Brentford 2-1.

Marcus Rashford scored again for Aston Villa in a 3-0 win at Brighton.

Bottom-club Southampton was denied only its third league win of the season when Matheus Franca scored in the second minute of stoppage time to salvage a 1-1 draw for Crystal Palace.

Ipswich did pick up a rare win — beating Bournemouth 2-1.

Liverpool’s outstanding campaign has wobbled in recent weeks. Champions League elimination at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain was quickly followed by defeat to Newcastle in the English League Cup final.

Meanwhile, Arsenal’s win over Fulham on Tuesday sparked the possibility that the Londoners could yet mount something of a title challenge.

Dropped points against a fast-improving Everton would only have fueled belief that the tension is beginning to hit Liverpool's players at just the wrong time.

The home team survived two scares in the first half when Beto had a goal ruled out for offside and later struck the post after racing clear.

Liverpool took advantage through Jota's first goal in his last 11 appearances.

Victory means Liverpool need just 13 more points to be confirmed champion.

James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Newcastle United's Kieran Trippier, left, and Brentford's Kevin Schade battle for the ball during the English Premier League soccer match between Brentford and Newcastle United at St James' Park in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP)

Newcastle United's Sandro Tonali appeals to an official during the English Premier League soccer match between Brentford and Newcastle United at St James' Park in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP)

Aston Villa's Matty Cash attempts a shot on goal, during the English Premier League soccer match between Brighton and Hove Albion and Aston Villa, at the American Express Stadium, in Brighton, England, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (John Walton/PA via AP)

Aston Villa's Marcus Rashford has a shot on goal saved by Brighton and Hove Albion goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen, during the English Premier League soccer match between Brighton and Hove Albion and Aston Villa, at the American Express Stadium, in Brighton, England, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (John Walton/PA via AP)

Leicester's goalkeeper Mads Hermansen, foreground, fails to save the goal scored by Manchester City's Omar Marmoush, center, during the English Premier League soccer match at the Etihad stadium in Manchester, England, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)

Manchester City's Jack Grealish runs during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and Leicester City at the Etihad stadium in Manchester, England, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)

Everton's James Tarkowski, left, fouls Liverpool's Alexis Mac Allister during the English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and Everton at Anfield in Liverpool, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson)

Everton's James Tarkowski, left, right Liverpool's Alexis Mac Allister during the English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and Everton at Anfield, Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in Liverpool, England. (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)

Liverpool's Ibrahima Konate, left, and Everton's Beto battle for the ball during the English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and Everton at Anfield in Liverpool, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson)

Liverpool's Diogo Jota scores the opening goal during the English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and Everton at Anfield in Liverpool, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson)

Liverpool's Diogo Jota celebrates with Curtis Jones, top, after scoring the opening goal during the English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and Everton at Anfield in Liverpool, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson)

Liverpool's Diogo Jota scores the opening goal during the English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and Everton at Anfield in Liverpool, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson)

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)