#WE ARE SHARES OUR DEEPEST CONDOLENCES Ted Cruz has had quite a week. On Tuesday, the Texas senator ensured the Republican spending bill slashed funding for weather forecasting, only to then go on vacation to Greece while his state was hit by deadly flooding, a disaster critics say was worsened by cuts to forecasting, reports Oliver Milman

Cruz, who infamously fled Texas Texas for Cancun when a crippling winter storm ravaged his state in 2021, was seen visiting the Parthenon in Athens with his wife, Heidi, on Saturday, a day after a flash flood along the Guadalupe River in central Texas killed more than 100 people, including dozens of children and counsellors at a camp.

The Greece trip, first reported by the Daily Beast, ended in time for Cruz to appear at the site of the disaster on Monday morning to decry the tragedy and promise a response from lawmakers.

… The National Weather Service has faced scrutiny in the wake of the disaster after underestimating the amount of rainfall that was dumped upon central Texas, triggering floods that caused the deaths and around $20bn in estimated economic damages ..

Before his Grecian holiday, Cruz ensured a reduction in funding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s efforts to improve future weather forecasting of events that cause the sort of extreme floods that are being worsened by the human-caused climate crisis.