Delaware

Delaware’s federal representatives come out against Trump-backed food stamp cuts

Published

6 months ago

July 11, 2025

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Delaware’s federal representatives come out against Trump-backed food stamp cuts

Delaware’s federal delegation criticized cuts to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program resulting from the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.”
The cuts, projected to impact 37,000 Delawareans, are the largest in SNAP’s history and will reduce funding by over $186 billion through 2034.
The delegation expressed concern about the expanded work requirements and increased burden on states to provide assistance.
Food Bank of Delaware anticipates increased demand and reduced federal support, impacting their ability to serve those in need.

Delaware’s federal delegation was fired up at the Food Bank of Delaware on Friday morning.

The state’s Democratic federal delegation stood in front of volunteers of the food bank and spoke out against cuts to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, or food stamps. Sens. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Chris Coons, and Rep. Sarah McBride spoke at a press conference on July 11 at the Newark facility to address the passage of the Trump-backed “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” which features major cuts to Medicaid and SNAP eligibility.

They said 37,000 Delawareans could lose access to SNAP benefits.

“Last week, President Trump signed into law his so called Big, Beautiful Bill, which is going to have ugly consequences,” Coons said. “It will cost people their health care and their food. 37,000 will lose access to help making sure they’re not hungry.”

It is the largest cut to the program’s history, taking away over $186 billion through 2034, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Food stamps have been around since the Great Depression era, and SNAP was made permanent under President Lyndon B. Johnson.

The Delaware delegation voted against and said it intends to mitigate how cuts to SNAP affect Delaware. Coons said he will find ways to collaborate with state leaders. For him, it starts with educating people about what is actually in the gargantuan bill.

“I want to make sure that to the extent I can get answers out of the administration, I’m helping the state understand exactly what the impact is going to be,” Coons said.

SNAP benefits will be harder to come by with the new law because of expanded and stricter work requirements and a larger burden on individual states to provide assistance. It could have far-reaching consequences on lower-income families and individuals.

Census data estimates that 10% of Delaware residents live in poverty. For Blunt Rochester, the bill was “deceitful.”

“There is a reality that in Delaware, nearly half of the families that are receiving SNAP have children in them, and children can’t learn if they’re hungry,” she said.

McBride spoke about the cuts to the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, which created cooperative agreements to provide funding for state governments to purchase foods produced within the state or region to help support local, and regional producers, according to the USDA.

She said the “win-win” program in Delaware was vital to supporting small farms in places with limited access to nutritious food.

“They dismantled the infrastructure that helps fuel our economy and feed our communities,” McBride said at the press conference “This is a betrayal. This budget portrays our values as Americans, and it portrays our values as state leaders.”

The Food Bank of Delaware is concerned about a rise in demand and less federal assistance to give it a boost. The Food Banks’s Vice President of External Affairs Chad Robinson said the cuts to SNAP and other food assistance programs will make it more difficult to put food on the table for some people.

“These cuts represent the equivalent of 6 billion meals, which is the amount that Feeding America gave nationally last year,” Robinson said. “So we’re going to do everything we can to make sure the Delawareans have an opportunity to have the food on their table that they need.”

McBride brought Newark resident Elizabeth Morales and her daughter with her. Morales said SNAP benefits gave her a way to get back on her feet despite being laid off in 2023. She called the cuts “theft,” and dispelled the notion that SNAP benefits are a “handout.”

“It doesn’t discourage people from working, whether they’re working, looking for work, or just trying to get through a hard season,” she said. “It helps people stay afloat.”

Shane Brennan covers Wilmington and other Delaware issues. Reach out with ideas, tips or feedback at slbrennan@delawareonline.com.

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Delaware

MERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach

Published

4 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

MERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach

A dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach on Jan. 8, according to the nonprofit Marine Education Research and Rehabilitation Institute.

The juvenile male was first seen Jan. 6, floating at sea about 2 miles off the Indian River Inlet, a MERR Facebook post said. The bloated 30-foot whale ultimately beached near a private community in the early afternoon of Jan. 8, the post said.

MERR is attempting to coordinate with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to get equipment to move the whale out of the water and onto the beach to perform a necropsy, the post said. Right now, there isn’t enough information to determine a cause of death.

Delaware saw at least three dead whales last year, in the Indian River Bay, at Delaware Seashore State Park and at Pigeon Point. The first two were humpbacks, while the Pigeon Point whale was a fin whale.

A necropsy on the Delaware Seashore whale found blunt force trauma across its back, indicating it may have been struck by a ship, MERR Director Suzanne Thurman said.

Recently, on Jan. 4, a dead fin whale was found on the bow of a ship at the Gloucester Marine Terminal in New Jersey, which is located in the Port of Philadelphia on the Delaware River.

Shannon Marvel McNaught reports on southern Delaware and beyond. Reach her at smcnaught@gannett.com or on Facebook.

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Delaware

Pa. man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from Delco cemetery

Published

16 hours ago

January 8, 2026

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Pa. man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from Delco cemetery

A Pennsylvania man is accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from a cemetery in Delaware County.

Jonathan Gerlach, 34, of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, is charged with abuse of corpse, criminal mischief, burglary and other related offenses, Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse revealed on Thursday, Jan. 8.

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Between November 2025 and Jan. 6, 2026, 26 mausoleums and underground burial sites had been burglarized or desecrated at Mount Moriah Cemetery, which stretches from Yeadon Borough, Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia, investigators said.

As police investigated the thefts, they caught Gerlach desecrating a monument at the cemetery on Tuesday, Jan. 6, according to officials. Gerlach was taken into custody and investigators executed a search warrant at his home in Ephrata.

During the search, investigators recovered 100 human skeletons from Gerlach’s home as well as eight more human remains inside a storage locker, according to Rouse.

“Detectives walked into a horror movie come to life the other night guys,” Rouse said. “This is an unbelievable scene that no one involved – from myself to the detectives to the medical examiners that are now trying to piece together what they are looking at, quite literally – none of them have ever seen anything like this before.”

Rouse said some of the stolen skeletons are hundreds of years old.

“We are trying to figure out exactly what we are looking at,” Rouse said. “We quite simply at this juncture are not able to date and identify all of them.”

Rouse also said some of the skeletons are of infants and children.

“It is truly, in the most literal sense of the word, horrific,” Rouse said. “I grieve for those who are upset by this who are going through it who are trying to figure out if it is in fact their loved one or their child because we found remains that we believe to be months old infants among those that he had collected. Our hearts go out to every family that is impacted by this.”

Sources also told NBC10 the thefts are related to a similar case in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Investigators said they are looking at Gerlach’s online community — including his social media groups and Facebook page — to determine if people were buying, selling, or trading the remains.

Gerlach is currently in custody at the Delaware County Prison after failing to post $1 million bail. Online court records don’t list an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

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