The Trump administration is formally taking on fluoride in drinking water, with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy planning to tell the CDC to end its longtime recommendation for the practice.

• EPA head Lee Zeldin also said his agency is "ready to act."

Why it matters: Public health and dental experts have warned ending the addition of fluoride to drinking water will harm children's teeth.

Driving the news: Zeldin and Kennedy joined Utah lawmakers in a Monday media event to praise the state's first-in-the-nation ban on fluoride in public water systems.

• Kennedy later told the AP he planned to assemble a task force to examine the mineral in drinking water and tell the CDC to stop recommending it.

Catch up quick: Kennedy last November called fluoride "an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease."

The latest: He renewed those criticisms Monday, citing an August report by the National Toxicology Program that found, "with moderate confidence," an association between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQs in children.

Reality check: The analysis looked at fluoride levels more than double what federal regulators recommend in drinking water.

• "It is important to note that there were insufficient data to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies has a negative effect on children's IQ," the paper states.
• Most U.S. water systems contain fluoride below that level. Higher readings are almost always the result of naturally occurring fluoride in the ground, the New York Times reported.

What they're saying: "It is top of the list for the Environmental Protection Agency," Zeldin said, pledging the agency will "go back and look at these studies that have come out."

• Yes, but: Zeldin did not specify what, if anything, the EPA will do. Kennedy previously said the Trump administration would advise U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.

By the numbers: More than 60% of the U.S. population is connected to water systems that contain added fluoride, per the Kaiser Family Foundation.

What we're watching: Bills similar to Utah's have been introduced in Tennessee, North Dakota and Montana.

Editor's note: This story's headline has been corrected to indicate that the EPA, not the FDA, is prepared to act on Kennedy's recommendation.

There has been a massive purge of articles about soldiers of color on government websites following President Trump's executive order ending federal diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

The big picture: The Trump administration has targeted DEI initiatives in both its rhetoric and through its actions dismantling federal DEI programs — halting efforts to bolster diversity and inclusion across several agencies.

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has declared that "DEI is dead."

Between the lines: What some see as an effort to erase "wokeness" and DEI initiatives, is a battle over how America accepts, acknowledges or edits its pasts, Axios' Delano Massey writes.

Jackie Robinson

The U.S. Department of Defense removed — then restored — a webpage featuring baseball and civil rights pioneer Jackie Robinson, who served in the Army during World War II and segregation, Axios' Russell Contreras reports.

• The previously removed article discussed his service during the war, before he broke the modern-day Major League Baseball color barrier for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
• "On July 6, 1944, Robinson boarded an Army bus. The driver ordered Robinson to move to the back of the bus, but Robinson refused," the article states.
• "The driver called the military police, who took Robinson into custody. He was subsequently court martialed, but he was acquitted."

Navajo Code Talkers

Articles about the famed Native American Code Talkers have disappeared from some military websites, with several broken URLs now labeled "DEI."

• From 1942 to 1945, the Navajo Code Talkers were instrumental in every major Marine Corps operation in the Pacific Theater of World War II. They were critical to securing America's victory at Iwo Jima.
• Axios identified at least 10 articles mentioning the Code Talkers that had disappeared from the U.S. Army and Department of Defense websites as of Monday.

The latest: Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren announced Wednesday that Pentagon officials promised to restore the pages.

442nd Regimental Combat Team

A National Guard article on the celebrated 442nd Regimental Combat Team — made up almost entirely of Nisei, or second-generation Japanese-Americans — was removed.

• A U.S. Army page that was deleted but restored this weekend following complaints — albeit without its previous reference to "AAPI Heritage" — identifies the 442nd as "the most decorated unit for its size and length of service during the entire history of the U.S. military."

Harlem Hellfighters

The National Guard removed two of its articles about the 369th Infantry Regiment, a highly decorated, segregated unit renowned in the U.S. and France for its heroics in World War I.

• The unit was initially formed as the first Black unit of the New York National Guard. Its enormous victory parade in 1919 was considered a landmark for Black pride and civil rights.
• They were the first American recipients of France's illustrious Croix de Guerre and many received the Legion of Honor — France's highest honor for civil or military merit.

Indigenous Americans' contributions

Axios found other removed pages about Indigenous Americans' contributions, including:

• Profiles of Iraq combat veterans from Arizona, Louisiana and Nevada; a paratrooper with the 173rd Sky Soldiers; and a Cherokee Brigadier General from Oklahoma;
• A chronicle of Native American women who served, including a medic who died while fighting Colorado's Storm Mountain Fire in 1994; and
• A news alert that an Oglala Sioux South Dakota National Guardsman had obtained an exemption to wear his hair long in accordance with his religion.

Tuskegee Airmen, WASPs

The Tuskegee Airmen, once American heroes, nearly became collateral damage in a political battle.

• The Air Force initially tried to remove their references from its curriculum but reversed course days later.

The Army also removed pages honoring the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) and Philippine Scouts of World War II, the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, Mexican American Medal of Honor recipients.

Charles Calvin Rogers

A story about Charles Calvin Rogers, a Black Army officer who received a Medal of Honor, was taken down and its URL altered to include the letters "DEI" in the web address. It appeared back online shortly after.

• Rogers received his medal for his brave defense of a firebase near South Vietnam's border with Cambodia in 1968. He spent his career challenging discrimination in the Army.

Zoom out: Axios in recent days found the DOD had given similar "DEI" labels to now-broken pages that honored:

• Civil War nurses;
• Prominent Black veterans and units, including the 761st Tank Battalion and 555th Parachute Infantry; and
• A Latino airman who coordinated mental health support for military personnel. The deleted story is titled, "Embraced in America, airman pays it forward."

More from Axios:

• Defense Department restores Jackie Robinson webpage after outcry
• Exclusive: Navajo Code Talkers disappear from military websites after Trump DEI order
• Black History Month faces uncertainty under President Trump's diversity rollback

Articles about the renowned Native American Code Talkers have disappeared from some military websites, with several broken URLs now labeled "DEI."

Why it matters: From 1942 to 1945, the Navajo Code Talkers were instrumental in every major Marine Corps operation in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

• They were critical to securing America's victory at Iwo Jima.

Driving the news: Axios identified at least 10 articles mentioning the Code Talkers that had disappeared from the U.S. Army and Department of Defense websites as of Monday.

How it works: The Defense department's URLs were amended with the letters DEI, suggesting they were removed following President Trump's executive order ending federal diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

• The Internet Archive shows the deleted Army pages were live as recently as November, with many visible until February or March. None are shown with error messages until Trump took office.

The other side: Asked about the missing pages, Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot replied in a statement: "As Secretary [Pete] Hegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department. ... We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms."

• "In the rare cases that content is removed that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct components accordingly."
• The statement did not address whether the Code Talkers are considered divisive DEI figures that "erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution."

Catch up quick: In both World Wars, the military deployed units that used Indigenous American languages to secretly transmit information in pivotal battles.

• Choctaw soldiers flummoxed German troops during World War I's deadly Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
• At Utah Beach, Comanche troops created terms that didn't exist in the language: Bombers were "pregnant airplanes," tanks were "turtles" and Adolf Hitler was "Po'sa taiboo" — "Crazy White Man."
• Meskwaki Code Talkers were sent to North Africa after 16% of the tribe's Iowa population enlisted during World War II. As of Monday, the word "Meskwaki" no longer appeared on the DOD's website.

Zoom in: The Navajo Code Talkers rapidly and meticulously shared hundreds of messages in the complex Diné language — often during intense battles, making them exemplars of courage under fire.

• At Iwo Jima, six Code Talkers sent more than 800 messages without any errors.

They likely saved countless American and Allied lives by using languages the U.S. government had tried for generations to eliminate.

• Meanwhile, the Code Talkers' function was predicated on diversity in the military; languages with more widespread use couldn't have provided effective encryption.

Stunning stat: Indigenous Americans have enlisted in the U.S. military at a rate five times the national average, per Trump's own proclamation in 2018.

• That proclamation has also been removed.

Zoom out: Axios found other removed pages about Indigenous Americans' contributions, including:

• Profiles of Iraq combat veterans from Arizona, Louisiana and Nevada; a paratrooper with the 173rd Sky Soldiers; and a Cherokee Brigadier General from Oklahoma.
• A chronicle of Native American women who served, including a medic who died while fighting Colorado's Storm Mountain Fire in 1994.
• A news alert that an Oglala Sioux South Dakota National Guardsman had obtained an exemption to wear his hair long in accordance with his religion.

Caveat: As of Monday, the U.S. Marines — the branch that deployed the Navajo Code Talkers — had not removed its pages about them.

• A few mentions also remained on the DOD site, on photo captions and speech transcripts.
• The Army's deleted pages were generally posted during the past two years; older references remained on the site.

The latest: Axios in recent days found the DOD had given similar "DEI" labels to now-broken pages that honored:

• Civil War nurses.
• Prominent Black veterans and units, including the Harlem Hellfighters, the 761st Tank Battalion and 555th Parachute Infantry.
• A Latino airman who coordinated mental health support for military personnel. The deleted story is titled, "Embraced in America, airman pays it forward."

Meanwhile, the Army removed pages honoring:

• The 54th Massachusetts Regiment, depicted in the film "Glory."
• The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) of World War II.

The big picture: The military has faced recent complaints over removed pages.

• Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson asked Trump last week to return Utahn Seraph Young — the first woman to vote in America — to Arlington National Cemetery's website after the removal of a list of notable women buried there.
• The Army restored a page Saturday about the celebrated Japanese-American 442nd Infantry Regiment after outcry over its disappearance.

Case in point: A profile of Army Major Gen. Charles Rogers, a Black recipient of the Medal of Honor, vanished when the word "medal" was changed to "deimedal" in the URL.

• The implication that his was a "DEI medal" drew ire as details from Rogers' citation circulated online.
• He was wounded three times during a massive assault on a support base in Vietnam when he refused medical care and repeatedly ran into enemy fire to lead counterattacks.
• The page was restored within the past day.

Some Native American tribes say tribal members are being harassed by federal immigration agents, while others fear they could be wrongly caught up in immigration raids.

Why it matters: The angst among some Indigenous tribes reflects the confusion and fear even among legal citizens during the Trump administration's immigration raids.

The big picture: Several tribes have issued warnings and advice to their members based on what they say have been encounters in which U.S. immigration agents have demanded proof of citizenship — episodes that the tribes have linked to racial profiling.

• The alarm comes as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says its agents are arresting more than 1,000 undocumented immigrants a day, part of President Trump's push to deport "millions" of people not authorized to stay in the U.S.
• Immigration raids in cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles — and Trump's new directives to allow searches in schools and churches in addition to workplaces and homes — have heightened concerns in communities across the country.

Zoom in: The Navajo Nation, one of the nation's largest tribes, said federal immigration agents have been questioning its members.

• "My office has received multiple reports from Navajo citizens that they have had negative, and sometimes traumatizing, experiences with federal agents targeting undocumented immigrants," Navajo President Buu Nygren said in a statement.
• Navajo Nation officials told CNN on Monday that at least 15 Indigenous people in the southwestern U.S. have reported being questioned or detained by immigration officers in the past week.
• The 17.5 million-acre Navajo Nation is in northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah. It's larger than 10 states.

ICE offices in Utah and Washington, D.C., did not immediately respond to Axios' requests for comment.

Zoom out: The Mescalero Apache Tribe in New Mexico announced that a member was confronted by ICE agents last week and was asked for ID — first in Spanish, although the member spoke English.

• The Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota said it was temporarily waiving all fees for issuing or replacing tribal IDs amid members' concerns about ICE encounters.
• Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee — the tribe's governing body — promised in a statement Saturday to "aggressively defend our rights and interests."
• The tribe offered legal counsel to members who are "improperly detained or questioned," as did the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah.

The San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, whose land crosses the Utah-Arizona border, advised its citizens to record encounters with ICE, ask for agents' badges and keep their doors closed and ask for a warrant if approached at home.

What they're saying: Trump's immigration executive orders have "raised concern among our tribal members, particularly regarding the potential targeting of our community by immigration agents," Chippewa Cree Tribe chairman Harat BaRete said in a statement.

• The north-central Montana tribe then released a set of guidelines urging members to remain silent, keep ID handy and report encounters to tribal officials.
• "The Rosebud Sioux Tribe is in the process of assessing the legal effects of the unlawful and unconstitutional Trump administration Executive Orders and will fiercely defend against any threat to the sovereignty," the South Dakota tribe said in a statement.

Between the lines: It's not unusual for ICE or DEA agents to enter tribal lands for immigration or drug enforcement.

• Since the Obama administration, U.S. agents have aggressively targeted human smuggling rings that use isolated Indigenous lands to try to move undetected.

Congress didn't grant citizenship to Native Americans until 1924 — a development President Trump's lawyers cited in their attempt to justify his temporarily blocked executive order to overturn birthright citizenship.

• The administration's attorneys last week invoked an 1884 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that denied citizenship to members of tribes to argue that "birth in the United States does not by itself entitle a person to citizenship."
• Some tribal leaders saw the argument as a threat against their members' U.S. citizenship.

School leaders across the U.S. are working to reassure parents about potential immigration enforcement on campuses after the Trump administration reversed a long-standing policy discouraging enforcement in "sensitive" areas.

Why it matters: The mere possibility of immigration enforcement on campus could cause widespread fear, leading some students to skip school. This would disrupt their education and threaten school funding, which is often tied to attendance.

Catch up quick: The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it was ending the policy of avoiding arrests in churches, schools, hospitals, funerals, weddings, and public demonstrations.

• "Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America's schools and churches to avoid arrest," the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
• "The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense."

Context: Children in the U.S. have a right to public education regardless of immigration status, meaning schools don't turn back — and in most cases, don't track — whether a student is in the country without authorization.

Zoom in: Some school districts are taking proactive steps to protect students and families, outlining policies that limit cooperation with immigration authorities and reinforce campus safety measures:

• Denver Public Schools, a district with roughly 89,000 students, said on Jan. 14 that principals should deny entry to any government official who arrives without prior appointments or legitimate school business and also initiate "secure perimeter" protocols, locking all exterior doors and halting all entries or exits from school buildings.
• The Salt Lake City School District has urged parents to update emergency contact information and reiterated that it doesn't track students' immigration status and will not report students to immigration authorities.
• The Philadelphia School District said school staff are instructed not to provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers with any information about students, families or employees, nor will they be allowed in schools without approval from district lawyers.
• Last month, San Diego Unified School District board adopted a resolution saying the district will not assist ICE in the "enforcement of federal civil immigration law" and won't allow access to its facilities or personnel unless officers have a warrant.

Reality check: The districts have long maintained policies that exclude immigration issues from schools; they are mainly reiterating these to alleviate fears among families.

Plus: Some districts in GOP-led states say they'll cooperate with ICE or are staying mum on their plans.

• "Florida schools will cooperate with all law enforcement working to enforce the nation's laws on illegal immigration," Florida's education department spokesperson Sydney Booker told Axios Tampa Bay.
• Northside ISD, San Antonio's largest district, does not plan to issue any communications or FAQs about immigration, district spokesperson Barry Perez tells Axios.

What they're saying: Nicholas Espíritu, deputy legal director at the National Immigration Law Center, says it's not clear what ICE enforcement in or around schools could look like.

• Past administrations have avoided allowing ICE in schools, choosing instead to focus efforts on people with violent criminal histories and who pose a national security threat.
• "One thing is for sure — little children trying to go to school and learn how to read and write don't pose threats to national security," Espíritu says, adding that even the possibility of enforcement could severely disrupt children's education and growth.