Across Washington, government agencies and nonprofits are scrambling to help 930,000 state residents who will lose their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, food benefits starting Nov. 1 due to the ongoing federal shutdown.

On Friday, a federal judge in Rhode Island blocked the Trump administration from halting SNAP benefits that feed 42 million Americans amid the ongoing government shutdown.

During the hearing, an attorney for the Justice Department argued the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program no longer existed because Congress had not appropriated funds for it, and that it was up to the administration whether to tap $6 billion in contingency funds to keep the program running.

The Rhode Island ruling came just minutes after a federal judge in Boston said plainti

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