A federal judge on Friday halted the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle the Voice of America, the eight-decade-old US government-funded international news service, calling the move a “classic case of arbitrary and capricious decision making.” Judge James Paul Oetken blocked the US Agency for Global Media, which runs Voice of America, from firing more than 1,200 journalists, engineers and other staff that it sidelined two weeks ago in the wake of President Donald Trump ordered its funding slashed. Oetken issued a temporary restraining order barring the agency from “any further attempt to terminate, reduce-in-force, place on leave, or furlough” employees or contractors, and from closing any offices or requiring overseas employees to return to the US.
