Crime-predicting camera; ISIS global reach; family-tree forensics, and more

ISIS still has global reach, despite the caliphate’s collapse (Robin Wright, New Yorker)
The scope of the attacks in Sri Lanka reflects the ongoing danger from extremist movements, whether ISIS, Al Qaeda, their offshoots, or their wannabes. The routing of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, in 2001, and the death of Osama bin Laden, a decade later, did not eliminate Al Qaeda. Today, the group has active branches in the Arabian peninsula and North Africa, and it controls a strategic Syrian province on the border with Turkey. In the past two years, ISIS has lost territory the size of Britain inside Syria and Iraq, but it still has eight official branches and more than two dozen networks regularly conducting terrorist and insurgent operations across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, according to the U.S. National Strategy for Counterterrorism.

What the Sri Lanka bombings tell us about the state of ISIS (Rita Katz, Daily Beast)
The group didn’t attribute the attack to New Zealand because it didn’t have to. Christians have long been among its targets.

Sri Lanka Easter bombings spurs call to ban burqas amid reports some of the attackers were women (Travis Fedschun. Fox News)
The Easter Sunday attacks on churches, hotels and other sites across Sri Lanka that killed over 300 people have now spurred some lawmakers to call for a full burqa ban.
A bill was announced Tuesday on the Facebook page of UNP Parliamentarian Ashu Marasinghe to propose banning the burqa in Sri Lanka, citing national security.
The bill, which was posted on the MP’s Facebook page, says that the burqa is not a traditional Muslim garment and claims it has been identified as previously being used by males to engage in terrorist activities by hiding their identities.

The meteoric rise of family tree forensics to fight crimes (Megan Molteni, Wired)
In the year since the dramatic arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, the alleged Golden State Killer, investigative genetic genealogy has emerged as the most powerful new crime-fighting tool since DNA itself. So far, the technique has been used to identify suspects in more than 50 additional cases. Its vast potential to crack tens of thousands more has given rise to a lucrative new forensic science business, the formation of dedicated family tree-building police units, and the first-ever home DNA kit marketing campaign to get people to send in their spit to solve crimes.

With absolutely no evidence, Trump suggests U.K. spied on him for Obama (Daily Beast)
Donald Trump has pushed out a baseless conspiracy theory that the British government spied on his 2016 campaign on behalf of President Obama’s administration. In a tweet sent just one day after Queen Elizabeth II honored Trump and Melania with an invite to Buckingham Palace in June, the president quoted a pundit on the right-wing One America News Network accusing Britain of spying on him. Trump wrote: “‘Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson accuses United Kingdom Intelligence of helping Obama Administration Spy on the 2016 Trump Presidential Campaign.’ @OANN WOW! It is now just a question of time before the truth comes out, and when it does, it will be a beauty!” This baseless conspiracy theory was first brought to wider attention by Fox & Friends legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano in 2017 and repeated by then press secretary Sean Spicer. Even Fox News disavowed Napolitano’s theory two years ago, with anchor Shepard Smith saying on air: “Fox News cannot confirm Judge Napolitano’s commentary … Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now-president of the United States was surveilled at any time, any.”
British intelligence issued a withering response to the theory, saying: “As we have previously stated, the allegations that GCHQ was asked to conduct ‘wire tapping’ against the then President Elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”