Gov. Josh Shapiro made $5 million available for Pennsylvania food banks on Friday through Feeding Pennsylvania as the federally subsidized Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was set to dry up.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture planned to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on Saturday because it said it could no longer keep funding it due to the federal government shutdown.

Meanwhile, two federal judges ruled nearly simultaneously on Friday that the Trump administration must continue to fund SNAP, the nation’s biggest food aid program, during the shutdown through contingency funds.

The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net. Word in October that it would be a Nov. 1 casualty of the shutdown sent s

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