By Michael Casey, Geoff Mulvihill and Kimberlee Kruesi I Associated Press

BOSTON — Two federal judges ruled nearly simultaneously on Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration must continue to fund SNAP, the nation’s biggest food aid program, using contingency funds during the government shutdown.

The judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island gave the administration leeway on whether to fund the program partially or in full for November.

The rulings came a day before the U.S. Department of Agriculture planned to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program because it said it could no longer keep funding it due to the shutdown.

The program serves about 1 in every 8 Americans and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net — and it costs about $8 billio

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