Desiree Torres relies on federal assistance to buy food for her two children. But come Saturday the single mother, along with nearly 3 million other Floridians, likely will lose that help due to the federal government’s shutdown.

“I’m literally struggling to make ends meet. So now that that’s getting cut off, it’s kind of ridiculous to try and survive,” said Torres, 31, who earns $15 an hour as a cashier.

The ongoing government shutdown means the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly called SNAP or food stamps, will run out of funding this weekend, and so far leaders in Washington seem unlikely to resolve the logjam before payments are halted. A federal judge on Thursday, however, was scheduled to hear a legal challenge aiming to force the Trump administration to continue

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