Hansi Lo Wang

Updated March 19 at 9:25 a.m. ET

The coronavirus pandemic is forcing the U.S. Census Bureau to temporarily suspend all field operations for the 2020 census for two weeks until April 1, the agency announced Wednesday in a statement on its website.

Updated March 15 at 6:47 p.m. ET

Already saddled with cybersecurity risks, hiring challenges and wavering public trust, the 2020 census now must contend with a growing public health crisis.

Updated on March 6 at 10:10 a.m. ET

Making sense of the census can be difficult.

In the U.S., the national head count comes around once every 10 years. That's enough time for memories to fade and for newcomers to settle into life here without ever encountering the constitutional mandate, which determines how political representation and federal tax dollars are distributed.

After centuries of putting pen or pencil to paper, the U.S. government is getting ready to rely on digital screens and the cloud for its first-ever primarily online census.

Starting March 12, households across the country are expected to be able to participate in the once-a-decade national head count by going to my2020census.gov to complete the online census questionnaire, which is set to be open to the public through July 31.

Cross the treeless, frozen tundra of southwest Alaska, over ice-covered lakes and ponds near the Bering Sea, and you'll find the first community in the U.S. counted for the 2020 census.

With just weeks before the 2020 census is set to roll out nationwide, the Census Bureau is lagging behind on recruiting temporary workers and addressing IT and cybersecurity risks tied to the first primarily online U.S. count, a new report by the Government Accountability Office warns.

Updated on Feb. 12 at 6:42 p.m. ET

In these final weeks before the 2020 census is rolled out to the entire U.S., the federal government is under pressure to hire and train around a half-million door knockers and other temporary workers by this spring.

Updated Feb. 11 at 10:04 a.m. ET

On the front lines of climate change, warming temperatures and thawing permafrost are making it harder to get an accurate count for the 2020 census in some of the most remote communities of Alaska.

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.