Globe Trot: Cyclone batters Indian coast

INDIA: Hundreds of thousands of Indians fled the country’s eastern seaboard over the weekend as Cyclone Hudhud swept into the Bay of Bengal. Authorities evacuated at least 400,000 people from Andhra Pradesh and Orissa states and reported at least eight deaths from the storm packing 120-mph winds. Relief workers began arriving at the site on Monday and said the storm had demolished tens of thousands of mud huts in eastern India.

SYRIA: ISIS militants are besieging Kobani, the Syrian town bordering Turkey, and the reports are horrific: Witnesses told The Daily Mail the extremists have beheaded relatives and neighbors, with one refugee describing the sight of “hundreds” of headless corpses in the town.

Those reports haven’t been confirmed independently, but the United Nations warned if ISIS seizes full control of Kobani, as many as 12,000 people remaining in the city would likely face massacre. (At least 200,000 people have fled.)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said protecting the Kurdish town from an ISIS takeover wasn’t a top priority in the U.S. battle against the Islamic State. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on Twitter that it was “sad to see Secretary Kerry try to downplay impact of impending atrocities in Kobani by murderous terrorism army ISIS.” McCain also said he believes the U.S. isn’t making significant inroads in its battle against the Islamic State: “They’re winning and we’re not.”

ISRAEL: A network of Israeli businessmen managed to smuggle into Israel one of Syria’s last remaining Jewish families, according to The Times of Israel. The family reportedly arrived “with nothing,” but has begun a new life with the help of neighbors. The newspaper estimates only a few dozen families from Syria’s ancient community of Jews remain in the war-torn country today.

NIGERIA: A Christian pastor escaped imprisonment by Boko Haram militants after 10 months in captivity. Extremists from the Islamist terror group captured pastor Rotimi Obajimi on Jan. 6 and held him in the Sambisa Forest, the same jungle the militants fled to with the kidnapped schoolgirls from the Chibok village in April. The pastor said he escaped after his captors abandoned him during a heavy downpour in the forest.

A fellow pastor said the congregation was astounded when Nigerian soldiers appeared at the church compound with the missing minister: “We were so amazed to see him because we have been praying earnestly for a long time, trusting Jesus that he would surely come back.”

MONDAY MAP: Compiling data from the CIA Factbook, The Global Post offers a map of the some of the “most religious places in the world” and shows which religion most of the nations practice.