Federal judge rules Trump administration can't end census early

• The judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction in the case.
• Experts believed that the shortened census, which was already delayed for months amid the coronavirus pandemic, would lead to undercounts nationwide, especially in low-income and remote areas that have been slower to respond.

The big picture: The administration had argued that the speedup was necessary in order to meet a Dec. 31 deadline that would have seen census data turned over to the federal government to begin processing congressional allocations.

Read the ruling.