Instead of returning from a beach vacation to Mexico this weekend, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and some photographers helped distribute bottled water Saturday to Texans who still don't have potable water a week after an unusually long and frigid winter storm ground the state to a halt. On Sunday, Cruz posted photos of himself slicing brisket and posing with uniformed law enforcement officers, for Houston firefighters and other first responders.

While Cruz was out in the suddenly warm Houston sunshine — and enduring even more mockery for his short-lived Cancun getaway, this time on SNL — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was continuing to raise money for Texans and, on Saturday, distributing food at the Houston Food Bank with Reps. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas).

On Sunday night, she reported that her fundraising effort, launched Thursday, hit the $5 million mark.

The funds AOC raised will go to food banks around Texas, Feeding Texas, Family Eldercare, and the Bridge Homeless Recovery Center, and other nonprofits, Houston Public Media reports. Cruz had some helpful information for Texans, too, via the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Along with the warm weather melting the snow, Texans mostly have their power back — all but about 18,000 Sunday night, down from more than 4 million last week — and water service is coming back online, often with orders to boil it before drinking. At least 32 people Texans died from the storm, including an 11-year-old boy in Conroe, Christian Pavon, who was found dead of suspected hypothermia after two nights in an uninsulated trailer with his family. Peter Weber

During a Senate Judiciary Committee on "ghost guns" (firearms made at home that lack a serial number) on Tuesday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) tried to change the subject to a debate about police funding.

"If you don't support abolishing the police, why do you keep voting for nominees who advocate abolishing the police?," Cruz asked his Democratic colleagues, referring to Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke, whom President Biden has nominated to run the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (R-Conn.) responded to Cruz's attempted diversion by telling him his words were "a complete distortion of [Gupta's and Clarke's] positions" before adding that "we're not here to talk about those nominees. If you want to stay, we can do it at the end of the hearing, but right now we're gonna move on."

Cruz, it turns out, did not want to stay. He was next seen getting up and walking out of the room, though he did at least politely push in his chair. Tim O'Donnell

No, you haven't accidentally stepped into a time machine and emerged back in 2003: it appears Bennifer really might be a thing again.

After it was revealed Monday that exes Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck recently vacationed together for a week, TMZ reported Tuesday that they "didn't just rekindle their romance within the last two weeks," but "instead, it's been building since February." According to the report, Lopez and Affleck, who broke up in 2004, were in "very regular contact" beginning in early February, when Affleck "started flooding her with emails" while she was filming a movie in the Dominican Republic.

"We're told the tone of the emails wasn't just friendly," TMZ says, "but more loving and longing for Jen."

Affleck in one instance reportedly told Lopez she looked beautiful in photos and that he wished he could be down there with her in the Dominican Republic. They apparently emailed each other back and forth for Lopez's entire film shoot, which went until the end of April. The two were subsequently spotted together in May, setting the internet aflame and sparking rumors of a rekindled romance — though a source told Page Six at the time, "They are friends."

But on Monday, E! News quoted a source as saying Affleck and Lopez have "picked up where they last left off," also saying, "the chemistry is unreal." Lopez and Alex Rodriguez officially announced they were calling off their engagement in April, and Rodriguez, E! also reported, is apparently "shocked that J.Lo has moved on."

So, is Bennifer really back, then? Affleck's buddy Matt Damon, for one, is rooting for these crazy kids.

"I love them both," Damon told Today. "I hope it's true. That would be awesome." Brendan Morrow

As the Israel-Palestine conflict escalates, the lack of a U.S. ambassador to Israel or a consul general in Jerusalem for Palestinians is becoming more glaring, Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Tuesday.

In an earlier tweet, Miller wrote that the Biden administration's decision to remain mostly out of the fray has resulted in Israel and Hamas emerging as the "key decision-makers" at the moment, which is "not an uplifting thought." Walla News' Barak Ravid seemed to agree that the unhurried approach is befuddling amid a "huge crisis," noting that the Biden administration has appointed envoys for Iran, Libya, the Horn of Africa, and Yemen. "This doesn't make any sense," he tweeted.

While the Biden administration clearly wants to play a more restrained role in the Middle East than past administrations, it does seem that moving more quickly on tapping diplomatic officials could be necessary. On Monday, Gilad Erdan, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., tweeted (in Hebrew) his displeasure with the State Department's current messaging, Politico reports, suggesting the need for more direct engagement. Tim O'Donnell

The price was not right.

In their New York City mayoral endorsement interviews, published Monday by The New York Times, Democratic candidates Shaun Donovan and Ray McGuire dramatically underestimated the cost of homes in the city.

When asked the median sales price for a house or apartment in Brooklyn, McGuire, a former Citigroup vice chairman and Wall Street executive responded, "It's got to be somewhere in the $80,000 to $90,000 range, if not higher." The correct answer was $900,000.

When asked the same question, Donovan, former housing commissioner under New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, answered, "I would guess it is around $100,000." He later emailed to clarify his response as referring to the "assessed value" of homes in Brooklyn, not their price.

Of the eight candidates interviewed, the only one to answer correctly was former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, although Scott Stringer and Kathryn Garcia came close. Maya Wiley overestimated, responding with $1.8 million.

The Times later officially endorsed Garcia. The New York City mayoral primary will be held on June 22nd. Brigid Kennedy

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's official stance is that "less than 10 percent" of COVID-19 transmission has occurred outdoors, but The New York Times' David Leonhardt wrote Tuesday that that's like saying "sharks attack fewer than 20,000 swimmers a year." Sharks actually only attack around 150 people a year, so the 20,000 number is "both true and deceiving," which appears to be the case with the CDC's outdoor transmission assessment.

In reality, multiple epidemiologists told Leonhardt the actual figure is probably less than 1 percent, and may even be below 0.1 percent. The 10 percent benchmark "seems to be a huge exaggeration," said Dr. Muge Cevik, a virologist at the University of St. Andrew's.

The CDC reportedly reached that number based on research that defined any place that was a mix of indoors and outdoors as the latter. For instance, the bulk of cases tied to outdoor transmission in multiple studies occurred at construction sites in Singapore, which the Times reports were not solely outdoor settings, leaving open the possibility that transmission really occurred indoors. But even if all of the Singapore cases did occur outside, they still only made up less than 1 percent of total cases.

Increasing the risk by tenfold or more is an issue, Leonardt argues, not because it's bad math, but because it's "an example of how the agency is struggling to communicate effectively, and leaving many people confused about what's truly risky." Read more at The New York Times. Tim O'Donnell

California gubernatorial candidate Caitlyn Jenner has revealed she sat out the 2020 election and headed to the golf course instead.

Jenner, the former reality TV star and athlete who's running to oust California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in a recall election, told CNN she "didn't even vote" last year. Jenner is a Republican, and she said that "out here in California," a blue state, voting for a Republican president is "not gonna work."

Asked if she voted down-ticket, though, Jenner said she skipped that as well.

"It was voting day and I thought, the only thing out here in California that I worry about, which affects people, is the propositions that were out there," Jenner said. "And I didn't see any propositions that I really had one side or the other. And so it was Election Day and I just couldn't get excited about it. And I just wound up going to play golf, and I said, 'Eh, I'm not doing that.'"

Politico previously reported that Jenner "did not cast ballots in nearly two-thirds of the elections in which she was eligible to vote since 2000," and although she expressed support for former President Donald Trump as a candidate in 2016, she "never cast a ballot in the 2016 elections."

Asked by CNN's Dana Bash how she can get voters "excited" to get out and vote for her, then, Jenner responded, "Because I'm cute and adorable?" Brendan Morrow