By Blake Brittain and Jan Wolfe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A federal judge in Washington ordered the Trump administration on Monday to pause the layoffs of hundreds of employees from the agency that owns the U.S. news service Voice of America, adding that government officials had shown “concerning disrespect” for the court’s directives.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth halted the plan while he determines whether the U.S. Agency for Global Media complied with an injunction he issued in April that it “fulfills its statutory mandate that VOA serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.”

The layoffs would affect 532 jobs for full-time staff, representing most of the agency’s remaining employees. VOA broadcasts were abruptly shut down in March under an executive order from

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