Hansi Lo Wang

Updated Jan. 22 at 3:41 p.m. ET

Near the iced-over Bering Sea, parka-clad workers for the U.S. Census Bureau are gathering in a remote fishing village along the southwestern rim of Alaska to resume a U.S. tradition seen only once a decade — a count of every person living in the country.

In California, officials are so concerned the U.S. census will undercount the state's residents this year, they want some neighborhoods counted not once, but twice — first by the U.S. Census Bureau, and then by the state government.

Starting Tuesday, California is sending out workers to knock on doors as part of a sort of mini-census the state is officially calling the California Neighborhoods Count.

More than a year after his death, a cache of computer files saved on the hard drives of Thomas Hofeller, a prominent Republican redistricting strategist, is becoming public.

Republican state lawmakers in North Carolina fought in court to keep copies of these maps, spreadsheets and other documents from entering the public record. But some files have already come to light in recent months through court filings and news reports.

The Department of Homeland Security has agreed to share certain government records from its databases to help the Census Bureau produce data about the U.S. citizenship status of every person living in the country.

Robert Alexander has been away from home for more than a decade. His days and nights are spent locked up behind walls topped with barbed wire.

"Prison kind of gives you that feeling that you're like on an island," says Alexander, 39, who is studying for a bachelor's degree in biblical studies while serving his third prison sentence.

Clad in an oversized gray sweatshirt under the fluorescent lights inside the visiting room of Wisconsin's oldest state prison, he is more than 70 miles from his last address in Milwaukee.

Updated at 6:15 p.m. ET

The citizenship question the Trump administration wanted to add to the 2020 census would have likely been especially sensitive in areas with higher shares of Latinx residents and noncitizens. That's among the Census Bureau's final conclusions from its recent experiment testing public reaction to the question.

Updated at 12:15 p.m. ET

Facebook is changing user policies for its social media platforms to explicitly ban disinformation about and ads trying to discourage participation in the 2020 census, the company announced on its website Thursday.

The company says it plans to enforce these specific bans on all users, including politicians — a departure from previous comments from Facebook officials who said the company did not want to restrict politicians' speech on its platforms.

With fewer than 100 days left before the 2020 census is fully underway, rural communities caught in the digital divide are bracing for a potential undercount that could make it harder for them to advocate for resources over the next decade.

Months after the end of the legal battle over the now-blocked citizenship question, the trail of emails and internal memos about the Trump administration's push to include the question on the 2020 census is getting longer.

Updated at 9:10 p.m. ET

Nebraska's Department of Motor Vehicles has agreed to share its state driver's license records with the U.S. Census Bureau, the bureau and the state's DMV said Wednesday.

The confirmation makes Nebraska the first state to cooperate with the Trump administration's efforts to produce data about the U.S. citizenship status of every person living in the country. So far, no other state has signed a similar agreement with the Census Bureau, Michael Cook, a spokesperson for the bureau, tells NPR.

Updated Nov. 13 at 3:50 p.m. ET

A prominent GOP redistricting strategist had direct communication with an adviser to the Trump administration concerning the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census, newly released emails show.

The emails were released Tuesday by the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which has been conducting an investigation into the origins of the citizenship question that the Trump administration failed to add to forms for the upcoming national head count.

Updated at 9:05 p.m. ET

If the Trump administration had been allowed to add the now-blocked citizenship question to the 2020 census, it likely would not have had a significant effect on self-response rates, the Census Bureau said Thursday.

Updated Oct. 25 at 10:19 a.m. ET

The federal government is widening its recruiting efforts for 2020 census jobs to include certain noncitizens for their non-English language skills, a Census Bureau official announced this week.

With less than five months until the 2020 census is fully underway, the federal government is already seeing signs of potential hurdles to staffing up in time for the national head count.

The low unemployment rate and delays in processing background checks have hindered hiring this year for early rounds of census jobs, including positions at local census offices and those involved with setting up outreach partnerships with local organizations.

Updated Oct. 24 at 9:39 a.m. ET

The Census Bureau is asking states to voluntarily share driver's license records as part of the Trump administration's efforts to produce detailed data about the U.S. citizenship status of every person living in the country.

A group of voters and a Latinx advocacy group are challenging the Trump administration in federal court after officials signaled they may break with more than 200 years of precedent in how the federal government divides up congressional seats.

Updated at 5:58 p.m. ET

Latinx community groups based in Texas and Arizona are suing to block the Trump administration from collecting government records for the production of data concerning the U.S. citizenship status of every person living in the country.

After its failed attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, the Trump administration has forged ahead with ordering the Census Bureau to use government records to produce data about the U.S. citizenship status of every person living in the country.

Recent statements by Census Bureau and Justice Department officials have raised the question of whether the Trump administration plans to diverge from more than two centuries of precedent in how the country's congressional seats and Electoral College votes are divvied up.

Updated Aug. 13 at 6:25 p.m. ET

Starting this month, tens of thousands of Census Bureau workers are knocking on doors across the country to make sure the bureau has a complete list of addresses of where people live in the U.S.

Those addresses determine where the bureau will mail instructions and send the next major deployment of workers in 2020 for the constitutionally mandated head count of every resident, which is conducted by household.

The U.S. Census Bureau revealed plans Friday to remove a question about citizenship from census forms that will be used for the upcoming head counts in American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Asked why the change was made, the Census Bureau said in a written statement: "No citizenship question is to be included on the 2020 Census, this includes the Island Area censuses too."

Editor's note: This story originally identified the 2020 census questionnaires for American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands as Census Bureau forms that include a question about U.S. citizenship status.

Updated at 9:48 p.m. ET

John Gore, the main Justice Department official behind the Trump administration's failed push to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, is set to leave the department Friday.

A person familiar with the matter tells NPR Gore plans to spend time with his family while he is "discerning next steps."

With the legal fight to block a citizenship question from the 2020 census behind them, immigrant rights groups and other advocates are now turning toward what they consider an even greater challenge — getting every person living in the U.S. counted.

Days after President Trump announced he's no longer pushing for a citizenship question on the 2020 census, officials in his administration are now facing allegations of covering up the question's origins.