IS not only misreads texts, most clerics say, it also ignores Quranic verses requiring mercy, preservation of life and protection of innocents.

Three British schoolgirls believed to have gone to Syria to become "jihadi" brides. Three young men charged in New York with plotting to join the Islamic State group and carry out attacks on American soil. A masked, knife-wielding militant from London who is the face of terror in videos showing Western hostages beheaded.

They are among tens of thousands of Muslims eager to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State group (Daesh). An estimated 20,000 have streamed into the territory in Iraq and Syria where the group has proclaimed what it calls a "caliphate" ruled by its often brutal version of Islamic law.

But how rooted in Islam is the ideology embraced by this group that has inspired so many to fight and die?

President Barack Obama has insisted the militants behind a brutal campaign of beheadings, kidnappings and enslavement are "not Islamic" and only use a veneer of Islam for their own ends. Obama's critics argue the extremists are intrinsically linked to Islam. Others insist their ideology has little connection to religion.

Deaths, economic losses and other negative impacts from disasters have caused losses equivalent to 42 million years annually since 1980, a measure that is comparable to the burden of tuberculosis worldwide, the United Nations said.

More than 90 percent of the total "years" lost in disasters between 1980 and 2012 were in low and middle-income countries, representing a serious setback to their development, the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) said.

"If these figures show that disaster loss is as much a critical global challenge to economic development and social progress as is disease, they also show that it is a challenge unequally shared," the UNISDR said in a report on Wednesday.

On Dec. 23 Russ Flynn, already jailed at the Las Cruces Police Department over a parking dispute with his neighbor, piped up by "talking back" to police from behind his cell gate which unfortunately garnered an unwarranted response from two LCPD officers who soon-after bum-rushed Flynn's cell, quickly opening the gate to gain entry. Their intentions were clear.

Once inside Flynn's cell the two cops, in true roid-rage like fashion, proceeded to viciously attack Flynn, roughing him up, just before smashing his head against concrete walls, kneeing him and slamming him to the ground which ultimately fractured the man's skull.

You see at the time Flynn was of no threat to the officers as he was already locked in his cell securely. He was merely "talking back". Police are trained to take a decent amount of verbal abuse from their detainees, it's part of their job. And surely a few comments and a small display of frustration don't warrant the savage ass-beating of a defenseless handcuffed man by any means.

Yet even more grotesque and disgraceful is the fact that a report filed by the officer's says that Flynn hit his own "back and head against the wall" and that the heavy blows from the officer's knees were "to distract him from grabbing the officer's belt". However, video evidence tells a different story one that's not so favorable to the police.

Flynn spent "days" in the intensive care unit at a local hospital to recover from the severe battering two LCPD officers gave him and now intends to sue the "City of Las Cruces" over the matter, demanding "$12,500,000 as a full settlement".

"There needs to be repercussions", Flynn's attorney said.

BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley was given a 25 percent rise in total pay and bonuses in 2014 despite a drop in profits at the oil major, according to the annual report.

Dudley's remuneration rose from $10.17 million in 2013 to $12.74 million last year, according to BP's annual report released Tuesday. He also received $9.8 million in share awards. In January the company cuts its capital spending program and imposed a salary freeze, weeks after axing hundreds of jobs in Scotland and thousands more globally as a result of falling oil prices and profits. BP has frozen the pay of its 84,000 workforce around the world after a nearly 50 percent fall in crude prices since last summer.

The status quo is reality. People don't question the existing state of affairs, especially if it's been repeated enough times as the norm in the name of social, scientific and economic progress. But how do we define progress in our species?

Through advancements in energy, economics, agriculture, technology?

All of the above? What about advancements in Humanity?

Humanity has taken a back-door to what we define as progress. The problem is we still live in a world where people believe:

Methane gas explosion hits notorious Zasyadko shaft in rebel-held Donetsk

More than 30 people are thought to be dead after a methane gas explosion at a notoriously dangerous coal mine in eastern Ukraine.

There were conflicting reports over the number of casualties but Vladimir Groysman, Ukraine's parliament speaker, told MPs that 32 miners had been killed at the Zasyadko mine in rebel-held Donetsk.

Vladimir Tsymbalenko, head of the local mining safety service, also told Reuters that more than 30 people were killed. "Rescue workers have not yet come to the place of the explosion, they are removing the poisonous gas and then will go down," he added.

Rebel media quoted a local emergencies ministry spokesperson saying that one miner had died and fourteen were injured after the explosion on Wednesday morning, with scores still trapped underground.

Ivan Prikhodko, a city official in Donetsk, told the DAN news agency: "All I can say at the moment is that 32 people are underground, and one person has died. Until the rescue workers reach them, to say they are dead is at the very least unethical."

The Walking Dead is one of the most popular post-apocalyptic shows ever seen on television, and while the gripping story focuses on the characters and their travels through the ruined world, there are some lessons to be learned by us along the way.

Sure, not everything the characters do is spot-on correct for survival, and honestly much of what they do is the opposite of what you should do in a survival situation, but even bad actions can be learned from, just never repeated. We've rounded up seven lessons to be learned for survival from watching the Walking Dead and listed them below. The show does a great job at showing us what average people will do in an EOTWAWKI situation, and thanks to their many mistakes, we can learn and be better.

1. Beware of Other Survivors, No Matter How Nice They Seem

If there's one thing this show has taught us, it's that you need to be just as scared of your fellow survivors as you are the enemy. While someone might seem nice, they could easily be playing you for a chump so they can steal your supplies or just so they can do you harm.

The Governor seemed like a really nice guy and we saw how that turned out. The same goes for countless others in the show that lead people on just to take advantage of them later. Don't even get us started on the "people" at Terminus. Remember, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

2. A Secure Location is Great, But Never Perfect

© AMC

This is best shown with the example of the jail in seasons 3 and 4, but can be applied to just about any refuge taken in the show. It doesn't matter how secure you think your location is, something can always happen to make you have to bug out.

Keep your eyes open and no matter how safe you feel, always have a plan to get out quickly and to meet up after you bug out. As we saw in season 4 when the survivors were pushed from the prison, not having a plan to meet up after an emergency can leave your fellow survivors scattered to the wind and in constant danger.

With fire-breathing religion figuring anew in global conflicts, and political discussions at home often dominated by the nuttery of the Christian right, you might get the sense that somebody's god is ready to mug you around every street corner. But if you're the type who doesn't like to hang your hat on organized religion, here's a bit of good news: in America, your numbers are growing.

There are more religiously unaffiliated people in the U.S. today than ever before. Starting in the 1980s, a variety of polls using different methodologies have come to the same conclusion: people who do not identify with religious labels are on the rise, perhaps even doubling in that time frame.

Some call them "nones": agnostics, atheists, deists, secular humanists, general humanists, and people who just don't care to identify with any religious group. It's not exactly correct to call them nonbelievers, because some still have faith and spirituality in some sense or another. A 2012 Pew study noted that 30 percent of these people believe in "God or universal spirit" and around 20 percent even pray every day. But according to the latest research, Americans checking the "none of the above" box will make up an increasingly important force in the country. Other groups, like born-again evangelicals, have grown more percentage-wise, but the nones have them beat in absolute numbers.

The nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute has documented this sea change in its American Values Atlas, which it released last Wednesday. The fascinating study provides demographic, religious and political data based on surveys conducted throughout 2014. According to PRRI director of research Dan Cox, "The U.S. religious landscape is undergoing a dramatic transformation that is fundamentally reshaping American politics and culture."

Last year, for the very first time, Protestants lost their majority status in the Institute's annual report, making up only 47 percent of those surveyed. The religiously unaffiliated, who come in at 22 percent, boast numbers on par with major religious groups like American Catholics. All told, the unaffiliated is the second-largest group in the country. It was also the most common group chosen by residents in 13 states, with the largest share (a third or more) in Washington, Oregon and New Hampshire. In Ohio and Virginia, this group was tied for first place. The unaffiliated don't find too many like-minded folks down in Mississippi, however, where they make up only 10 percent of the population.

Outside, in the streets surrounding the U.S. Congress, a strong, spirited crowd of demonstrators denounced Benjamin Netanyahu for committing war crimes against the Palestinian people and for attempting to whip up a war fever against Iran. We were met by police lines and cops who grabbed and shoved people as they attempted to exercise their Constitutional right to protest at Congress.

Inside, from within the hallowed halls, Netanyahu was given a boisterous two-minute-long standing ovation by the millionaire politicians in Congress.

The irony of what happened today speaks volumes about the nature of democracy in this country.

Multiple gunshots reportedly struck a National Security Agency office building in Fort Meade, Maryland, where the department's headquarters are located, according to local law enforcement officials.

No injuries have been reported at the scene, though the NSA told NBC Washington that one of its buildings was damaged by "what appear to be" several gunshots. Law enforcement officials are investigating the situation, but US Park Police say they don't know who may have fired the shots.

According to the Washington Post, US Park Police spokesperson Alicia Woods said the NSA "found evidence of multiple shots hitting a wall of a building."