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The order was in response to a challenge from cities and nonprofits complaining that the administration was only offering to cover 65% of the maximum benefit, a decision that would leave some recipients getting nothing for this month.

“The defendants failed to consider the practical consequences associated with this decision to only partially fund SNAP,” McConnell said. “They knew that there would be a long delay in paying partial SNAP payments and failed to consider the harms individuals who rely on those benefits would suffer.”

McConnell was one of two judges who ruled last week that the administration could not skip November's benefits entirely because of the federal shutdown.

It has been a week of twists and turns for SNAP beneficiaries

ordered the government to use one emergency reserve fund containing $4.6 billion to pay for SNAP for November but gave it leeway to tap other money to make the full payments, which cost between $8.5 billion and $9 billion each month.

On Monday, the administration said it would not use additional money, saying it was up to Congress to appropriate the funds for the program.

The next day, Trump appeared to threaten s at all unless Democrats in Congress agreed to reopen the government. His press secretary later said that the partial benefits were being paid for November — and that it is future payments that are at risk if the shutdown continues.

Late Wednesday, the USDA, which runs the program, said in a filing in federal court in Rhode Island that it had done further analysis and found that the maximum benefit will be 65% of the usual amount.

Speaking at the Greater Boston Food Bank in Massachusetts Thursday morning, Democratic Gov. Maura Healey said the Trump administration is sending mixed messages: “Come on. You know, you’re going to partially fund food for Americans? You’re going let people starve?"

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Associated Press writers Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut; and Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.