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

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

The programme serves about one in every eight Americans and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net.

Word in October that it would be a November 1 casualty of the shutdown sent states, food banks and Snap recipients scrambling to figure out how to secure food. Some states said they would spend their own funds to keep versions of the programme going.

The programme costs around US$8 billion per month nationally.

Democratic state attorneys general or governors from 25 states, as well as the District of Columbia, challenged the plan to pause the programme, contending that the administration has a legal obligation to keep it running in their jurisdictions.