President Donald Trump locks in a critical deal with Australia as he presses on several foreign policy fronts, the administration ramps up the Caribbean war on drugs, and a Christian couple loses their foster care license over gender theory.
It’s Tuesday, October 21, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.
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White House Roundup
Topline: The weekend protesters may have cleared out, but it’s shaping up to be another wild week in Washington – with a major presidential focus on foreign policy.
Ukraine: President Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Friday. While it wasn’t their most contentious meeting, Trump seems less bullish on Ukraine since his recent conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump suggested that he’s not ready yet to provide Ukraine with the Tomahawk missiles they’ve requested.
Australia: On a more positive note, Trump had a productive meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday.
The two leaders signed a critical minerals and rare earths deal. Under the agreement, the United States and Australian governments will invest more than $3 billion in critical mineral projects over the next six months, “with recoverable resources in the projects estimated to be worth $53 billion,” according to the White House.
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The deal also includes a lot of burden sharing and making new defense investments that will strengthen the alliance between the United States and Australia.
On the home front: The president recently decided to weigh in on upcoming elections. Trump made a late-breaking endorsement of Virginia Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears for Virginia governor.
The endorsement of Earle-Sears comes when the race is tightening because of a scandal lower down on the ballot with the Democratic candidate for state attorney general, Jay Jones.
In New Jersey’s gubernatorial race, Trump has endorsed Republican Jack Ciattarelli.
The New Jersey race is also tightening up significantly. Ciattarelli came close to winning in 2021. Trump endorsed him in May because Ciattarelli was in a primary battle then.
Shutdown showdown: The shutdown shows no sign of ending soon. Rumors on Capitol Hill suggest rank-and-file Democrats want to negotiate an “off-ramp” with Republicans, but no one has said what that looks like. The posture of the situation is best described as a waiting period to see what Democrats will do.
Trump’s War On Narco-Terrorists
Topline: The Trump administration is massively escalating its counternarcotics campaign in the Caribbean against suspected drug traffickers.
Venezuela: The Trump administration saw the destruction that occurred to the United States under the Biden presidency when it came to opening up our borders. According to Trump, that pulled countries like Venezuela to send in prisoners, gangbangers, and narcotraffickers, and the president says he wants that to end for good.
Trump is pressuring the Maduro regime by carrying out dramatic kinetic strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and sending the message that there is a new sheriff in town.
Former DEA Attache for Venezuela Wes Tabor told The Daily Wire that the pressure is so extreme that he doesn’t see Maduro staying in power much longer.
“There’s an internal pressure that’s boiling between Nicolas Maduro and between the Estado Alliance, who is basically the head of the military and also in the Senate. And he has a lot of power with the military, whereas Maduro is the figurehead. He’s the president. Those two are battling it out right now in the country,” said Tabor.
“I’ve heard rumors from my sources in Venezuela,” he continued. “They’re saying, you know, there have been a few times that Nicolas Maduro was thinking about bugging out.”
Colombia: Trump wants Colombia to be wary of becoming the next Venezuela — signaling that the United States could take a stricter stance against Bogotá and its leadership if the government refuses to cooperate with his administration. The Colombian president is slowly chipping away at the longstanding relationship with a United States that has cracked down on cocaine production.
Anti-Christian Foster Care Case
Topline: The state of Massachusetts has revoked the license of foster parents Lydia and Heath Marvin, both Christians, after the couple refused to sign a “gender-affirming” policy. The couple is now taking legal action, claiming religious discrimination.
The Marvins: The Marvins have been fostering children since 2020, primarily infants and toddlers with medical needs or special challenges – the kind of children few homes are equipped to handle. Their record shows they accepted cases others turned down.
In April, the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) revoked their fostering license. The stated reason: the Marvins declined to sign the state’s revised LGBTQ Non-Discrimination Policy — specifically a section requiring foster parents to affirm a child’s gender identity and sexual orientation.
The Marvins argue that signing would conflict with their sincerely held Christian convictions. They’ve initiated legal action, claiming religious discrimination and violation of their First Amendment rights.
The DCF: DCF officials insist their duty is to protect children. In their view, that means placing kids only in homes that will affirm their gender identity and sexual orientation.
Step back: Critics such as journalist and child-welfare expert Naomi Schaefer Riley say the state has lost sight of the bigger mission.
“A lot of these states have just really lost sight of the goal there — which should be providing as many options for safe, loving homes as possible to these kids,” Riley told The Daily Wire.
Riley, who has written extensively on family policy, says this case fits a growing national pattern where religious foster families feel pressured to abandon their beliefs or stop fostering altogether. That’s a serious problem because, according to a study released just last month, Christians are more than three times more likely to foster a child compared to those with no religious affiliation. They’re also more likely to adopt out of the foster care system.
It’s a trend: In Massachusetts, another couple — Mike and Kitty Burke — were rejected as foster parents last year after expressing Catholic beliefs about marriage and gender that didn’t align with the state’s policy.
And in Oregon, a woman named Jessica Bates was denied a foster license for refusing to commit to gender-affirming practices. Her case is now before a federal appeals court.
Riley says many more conflicts never make the headlines.
“Once they make clear they’re looking for parents who fit a certain mold, people of faith either violate their own principles to comply, or they just don’t sign up at all because they know the agency is going to be hostile to their religious practice,” she said.
Hope for the Marvins: One major court precedent is the 2021 Supreme Court decision Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. In that case, the court ruled that the city violated the Free Exercise Clause when it stopped contracting with Catholic Social Services because the agency wouldn’t certify same-sex couples.
The court said that because Philadelphia’s rules allowed for exceptions, the city couldn’t deny a religious exemption.
Legal analysts say the Marvin case could hinge on similar reasoning — whether Massachusetts’ policy is truly “neutral and generally applicable,” or if it targets religious beliefs.
The Marvins’ lawsuit, filed with help from Alliance Defending Freedom, is still in early stages.
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