LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Taiyanna Jackson had 17 factors and career-high tying 21 rebounds — her fourth consecutive double-double and twenty third of the season — Zakiyah Franklin added 19 factors and Kansas beat Columbia 66-59 Saturday to win the WNIT championship.

Chandler Prater added 9 factors, 11 rebounds and 4 steals for Kansas (25-11) and Wyvette Mayberry scored 12 factors. The Jayhawks completed with their most wins for the reason that 1997-98 workforce that additionally gained 25 video games and set a program report for house wins in a season with 19.

This season Kansas made its first look within the AP High 25 in almost a decade after the Jayhawks — who gained 21 video games final season and superior to the NCAA Event for the primary time since 2013 — set a program report with 10 consecutive wins to open the season.

Columbia (28-6) struggled offensively in opposition to the size and athleticism of the Kansas protection. The Lions, who went into the sport ranked No. 13 nationally in scoring offense (78.8 per recreation) and No. 12 in rebound margin (plus-8.5), have been held to fewer than 60 factors for simply the third time this season and outrebounded (49-41) for simply the fourth time.

Franklin scored eight straight Kansas factors in a 12-5 spurt that gave the Jayhawks a 29-25 lead — the most important by both workforce to that time — with a minute to go within the first half. After Kitty Henderson hit a 3 for the Lions, Chandler Prater’s jumper made it 31-28 at intermission. Henderson hit a 3-pointer, Abbey Hsu made a jumper and Jaida Patrick added one other 3 within the first 68 seconds of the third quarter to place Columbia forward by 5 earlier than a 15-0 spurt gave Kansas the lead for good.

Columbia missed 10 consecutive subject objectives and made simply certainly one of its subsequent 15 from the sector after Patrick’s 3 and Kansas by no means trailed over the ultimate 18 minutes.

Hsu led the Lions with 19 factors and Kaitlyn Davis scored 13. Hsu completed the season with 606 factors, two shy of this system report set by Camille Zimmerman in 2016-17.

Jackson had three blocks to increase her single-season Kansas report to 109.

Columbia is the primary workforce in Ivy League historical past to advance to the WNIT’s championship recreation. Final yr, the Lions have been the primary workforce in convention historical past to make it to the Nice Eight, the place they fell to Seton Corridor, 78-75.

Columbia’s 28 wins this season are a brand new program report, three greater than the earlier report set final yr when the Lions went 25-7.

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AP ladies’s school basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

Six members of the 16-man crew on a Liberia-flagged tanker are being held hostage by pirates who boarded the ship in West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea final week, the Danish shipper that owns the vessel and the French Navy mentioned Friday.

Pirates boarded the Monjasa Reformer southwest of Port Pointe-Noire, Congo, on March 25 and 5 days later, the French Navy that was patrolling the world, discovered the ship off the small island nation of Sao Tomé and Principe north of the place it had been attacked.

In a press release, firm spokesman Thorstein Andreasen mentioned that “the pirates had deserted the vessel and introduced part of the crew members with them.” It didn’t say what number of had been kidnapped or how they had been taken.

After the pirates had boarded the tanker, the crew sought refuge in a citadel — a secure space on the ship — consistent with the onboard anti-piracy emergency protocol. Nevertheless, the pirates someway managed to take a few of them hostage. The nationalities of the crew members has not been introduced, nor had been particulars given as to the place they’re being held.

The pirates later left the Monjasa Reformer, and a French Navy vessel, Premier Maître L’Her, acquired a message from the remaining crew that six individuals had been kidnapped. The French vessel rushed to scene and handled three individuals for minor accidents.

PIRATES ATTACK SHIP AND HOLD CREW MEMBERS HOSTAGE OFF OF WEST AFRICA

The corporate spokesman mentioned the crew members not taken hostage “are all in good well being and safely situated in a safe surroundings and receiving correct consideration following these dreadful occasions.”

No injury to the ship or its cargo has been reported, mentioned Andreasen. He didn’t give additional particulars.

After assault, the Monjasa Reformer was escorted towards Lome, the capital of Togo, by a Nigerian ship, based on the French Navy.

The Gulf of Guinea is without doubt one of the world’s most harmful spot for assaults on ships. In June, the United Nations Safety Council unanimously adopted a decision strongly condemning piracy, armed theft and hostage-taking within the space. This hijacking occurred additional south in an space that’s not usually attacked by pirates.

The Monjasa Reformer is utilized in West Africa as a part of Monjasa’s world marine fuels operations and was carrying marine gasoline oil, very low sulphur gas oil and excessive sulphur gas oil merchandise on board, the shipper mentioned.

Brussels insisted on Tuesday that it’s not handing “bodily cash” to Libyan entities after a UN fact-finding mission discovered that the EU “aided and abetted” the fee of crimes in opposition to migrants within the conflict-torn nation.

The UN report launched on Monday and based mostly on tons of of interviews carried out over a three-year fact-finding mission concluded that there’s proof that crimes in opposition to humanity have been dedicated in opposition to Libyans and migrants caught within the nation.

These crimes embody ladies being compelled into sexual slavery, arbitrary detention, homicide, torture, rape, enslavement, and enforced disappearance.

The Libyan coast guard have been in the meantime discovered to be working “in shut coordination” with trafficking networks in Libya with the exploitation of weak migrants producing “important income”. 

“The help given by the EU to the Libyan coast guard by way of pull-backs, pushbacks, (and) interceptions led to violations of sure human rights,” investigator Chaloka Beyani instructed reporters. “You possibly can’t push again folks to areas which might be unsafe, and the Libyan waters are unsafe for the embarkation of migrants.”

He mentioned the European bloc and its member states weren’t discovered to be chargeable for conflict crimes, however “the help given has aided and abetted the fee of the crimes.”

‘A stimulus for us to work extra’

Peter Stano, lead spokesperson for the EU exterior affairs service, instructed journalists on Tuesday that “one factor which is essential to remember, we aren’t financing any Libyan entity. We’re not giving bodily cash to companions in Libya, precisely for these causes.”

The EU and its member states have for years offered materials and technical help to the Libyan coast guard in a bid to spice up interception of boats making an attempt the damaging crossings throughout the Mediterranean to illegally attain Europe. This contains coaching for the coast guard in addition to boats. 

It has additionally spent tens of tens of millions of euros to guard and help migrants and refugees and help native communities.

“What we’re doing is allocating some huge cash, which is then normally utilized by our worldwide companions. Loads goes by way of the UN, for instance, once we are doing the repatriations, once we are doing reallocations by way of IOM or with the assistance of the UNHCR,” Stano mentioned. 

“So I do not agree with the claims that our cash goes to finance the enterprise mannequin of the smugglers or of those that are misusing and mistreating folks in Libya, fairly on the contrary. Many of the cash goes with the intention to maintain these very folks,” he added.

The cash was used, as an illustration, to fund 60,000 assisted voluntary returns and the vacuation of 5,500 refugees from the nation by way of the UNHCR, Stano mentioned.

The EU, he additionally mentioned, is “taking severely the issues” raised by the UN fact-finding mission.

“Our goal, our joint goal, is to assist to enhance the state of affairs of the folks stranded in Libya. And there are outcomes. In fact, there are incidents, there are points that are supply of concern. We attempt to handle them with the companions in Libya, with the worldwide companions.”

“What we’re seeing and witnessing now’s only a stimulus for us to work extra with the intention to convey to the Libyan companions to work with us on these and in addition with the worldwide companions to have interaction much more, as a result of in the long run, it is folks we’re speaking about and it is folks to whom our efforts are directed at,” he mentioned.

In August 2022, there have been nearly 680,000 migrants from over 41 nationalities in Libya, in accordance with the UN’s Worldwide Organisation for Migration. The overwhelming majority are adults though 11% are kids