Hansi Lo Wang

Updated at 2:58 p.m. ET

The Senate confirmed Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo on Tuesday as the next secretary of the U.S. Commerce Department.

Even before taking office, former President Donald Trump's administration obsessed over the U.S. census.

Updated at 7:08 p.m. ET

The 2020 census data needed for the redrawing of voting districts around the country are extremely delayed and now expected by Sept. 30.

A senior Democratic aide who was briefed by the Census Bureau on Friday, but not authorized to speak ahead of the bureau's planned public announcement, first confirmed the schedule change to NPR earlier on Friday.

President Biden's nominee for overseeing the U.S. Census Bureau, Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, said she intends to depoliticize the 2020 census and listen to experts at a federal agency that had been caught in a partisan firestorm during the Trump administration.

"I believe that we need to take the politics out of the census, and we need to rely on the experts," Raimondo, a Democrat, told lawmakers Tuesday. "The experts and statisticians in the Census Bureau are top-notch, so I, once confirmed, intend to rely on them."

The U.S. Census Bureau has stopped working on a Trump administration-initiated project to produce citizenship data that could have politically benefited Republicans when voting districts are redrawn.

Updated at 9:44 p.m. ET

One of President Biden's first executive actions has reversed former President Donald Trump's unprecedented policy of altering a key census count by excluding unauthorized immigrants. The change ensures that the U.S. continues to follow more than two centuries of precedent in determining representation in Congress and the Electoral College.

Updated at 6:37 p.m. ET

The Trump-appointed director of the U.S. Census Bureau is stepping down close to a week after whistleblower complaints about his role in attempting to rush out an incomplete data report about noncitizens became public.

Updated Friday at 9:26 p.m. ET

The U.S. Census Bureau has halted all work on President Trump's directive to produce a state-by-state count of unauthorized immigrants that would have been used to alter a key set of census numbers, NPR has learned.

Updated Friday at 2:49 p.m. ET

Saddled with delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic and last-minute changes by the Trump administration, the first set of 2020 census results were not ready for release by Thursday's year-end deadline for numbers that determine representation in Congress and the Electoral College for the next decade.

Updated at 6:06 p.m. ET

The U.S. Supreme Court ducked a direct ruling Friday on whether President Trump can exclude undocumented immigrants from a key census count.

At issue in the case was Trump's July memorandum ordering the U.S. Census Bureau for the first time to exclude undocumented immigrants from the decennial census for purposes of reapportionment. The count is used to determine how many seats each state gets in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College.

Updated Wednesday at 12:12 a.m. ET

It's still not clear when the U.S. Census Bureau will release the first results from the 2020 census.

But when it does, the bureau estimates the count may show that the U.S. population has grown by as much as 8.7% since the 2010 census, which produced a count of 308.7 million people.

The Census Bureau has found irregularities in records for this year's national tally that, if left unfixed, could miscount millions of people.

Updated at 5:24 p.m. ET

At the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, the justices expressed doubts about a plan to exclude undocumented immigrants from a key census count — the first time unauthorized immigrants would not be counted for purposes of drawing new congressional districts.

A federal court in Washington, D.C., has tossed out a lawsuit filed against President Trump's efforts to exclude undocumented immigrants from a key set of census numbers.

Updated at 8:25 p.m. ET

The U.S. Census Bureau has determined it cannot put together the first set of results from this year's census by its Dec. 31 deadline. The bureau says it needs to resolve routine "processing anomalies."

So, the bureau is looking toward Jan. 26 as a new target date, according to a bureau employee who learned about the shift during an internal meeting Thursday and spoke to NPR on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation in the workplace.

As the incoming Biden administration prepares for office, the Census Bureau is already looking ahead to changes for the 2030 count.

While Biden's transition team has not announced any specific policies yet for the next once-a-decade tally of the country's residents, the president-elect's campaign has previewed what could end up on the new administration's agenda. They include ideas that gained steam during the Obama administration but stalled after President Trump took office.

President-elect Joe Biden's win has some people asking if there's an opportunity for a 2020 census do-over.

Counting has ended, but the 2020 census is not over yet — and it's likely to get tangled in the fraught transition to President-elect Joe Biden's administration.

Updated Nov. 8 at 3:23 p.m. ET

Voters in Missouri have approved amending their state constitution with a subtle change that could spark a national legal fight over who is counted in voting districts.

Updated Friday at 10:04 a.m. ET

A second federal court has blocked the Trump administration's attempt to make an unprecedented change to who is counted in the census numbers that determine each state's share of seats in Congress.

A three-judge panel — which includes 9th Circuit Judge Richard Clifton, as well as U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh and Judge Edward Chen in Northern California — issued the new court order Thursday.

Updated at 7:32 p.m. ET

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to a speedy review of President Trump's attempt to exclude unauthorized immigrants from the census numbers used to reallocate seats in Congress.

Updated at 10:40 p.m. ET

The Trump administration can end counting for the 2020 census early after the Supreme Court approved a request to suspend a lower court order that extended the count's schedule.

Updated Saturday at 10:20 a.m. ET

A federal judge has issued an order to clarify that, for now, the U.S. Census Bureau must continue counting for the 2020 census through Oct. 31 after finding the bureau made multiple violations of an earlier order that extends the national head count's schedule.

The Trump administration has added its fourth political appointee in three months to the Census Bureau amid growing concerns about partisan interference with the 2020 census.

Earl "Trey" Mayfield has been appointed to serve as counselor to the bureau's director, Steven Dillingham, the bureau's chief spokesperson, Michael Cook, confirmed in a statement Wednesday to NPR.

"In this role, Mr. Mayfield will assist the Director in strategic decision making and litigation coordination, reporting to the Department of Commerce Office of General Counsel," Cook said.

A federal appeals court has denied the Trump administration's request to temporarily block a lower court order that extends the 2020 census schedule.

The Census Bureau must continue counting as ordered by the lower court for now, according to the new ruling by 9th U.S. Circuit Judge Johnnie Rawlinson and Judge Morgan Christen, who were part of a three-judge panel. Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented.

The winding down of the 2020 census must remain on hold nationwide through Sept. 24 at the latest, a federal judge in California has ordered.

The Trump administration is turning to the Supreme Court to try to revive the president's attempt to exclude unauthorized immigrants from the census numbers used to determine each state's share of seats in Congress.