What a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week.  

Joe Biden’s embarrassing gaffes came thick and fast this week – after the president managed to fumble a series of high-profile domestic events on the world stage.

His litany of errors – including walking into flag poles, addressing people with the wrong names and rudely forgetting to shake foreign official’s hands – is coupled with the devastating blow that the 80-year-old president’s approval rating stands at 37 percent.

This is five percentage points lower than it was in February, and crucially, it is 10 points lower than his fierce 2020 Republican competitor, Donald Trump, in the latest embarrassing poll from the Washington Post. 

Meanwhile, there is a percussive thunder of calls for him to drop out of the running for the next election, from both the left and the right of the political landscape. 

Many are seriously questioning how Biden will be able to face a long presidential campaign for the Democrats if he struggles like he did the past week – and how he’ll handle the prospect of another four years in office. 

Biden’s gaffes with the Brazilian president: Walking off stage, running into a flag, no hand shake, and failed translator earpiece

On September 20, ailing Joe Biden seemed to produce gaffe after gaffe while on the UN stage alongside Brazil‘s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Lula da Silva, 77, looked visibly irritated after the two leaders shared a stage to speak about their initiative to improve workers’ rights in each country – because Biden walked off without shaking his hand. 

Their diplomatic meeting got off to a labored start when Biden, 80, shuffled into a seven-foot Brazilian flag, leaving it teetering as he approached the podium. 

The president made a rambling speech about his ‘economic vision to rebuild our economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down’ while Lula watched on from his right flank. 

Meanwhile, during Lula’s speech, Biden fumbled with his headset, which he was using to hear a translated version. 

‘Can you hear me President Biden? This is an historical moment for Brazil, and for the US,’ Lula said at the start of his speech.

Biden continued to look confused as he grappled with the headset while Lula went on with his speech. At one point, Biden dropped his earpiece and raised his eyebrows in frustration.

International Labor Organization Director General Gilbert Houngbo took to the podium after the two world leaders, and Biden stooped to slowly grab a folder from the ground.

Houngbo shook hands with Biden and Lula in turn at the close of his speech – but Biden appeared to leave Lula hanging, awkwardly saluting the audience before shuffling off stage.

He appeared to be torn between giving a thumbs-up or a salute, and made a sloppy gesture combining the two.

As Biden turned his back on the Brazilian president, Lula looked annoyed and made a swiping gesture with his arm. They departed awkwardly from opposite sides. 

The series of mistakes and ill gestures were watched on the world stage – as the high-level meeting brought world leaders together at U.N. headquarters in New York.

President calls the Congressional Hispanic Caucus the ‘Black Caucus’ 

On September 22, the president made yet another public gaffe when all eyes were on him during a keynote speech in Washington, DC. 

Joe Biden mistakenly praised the ‘Congressional Black Caucus’ during a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. 

The 80-year-old made the blunder during a speech at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 46th Annual Gala. 

He had celebrated Sister Norma Pimental, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, for her gala award win moments before the mistake. 

Biden praised her for living the lessons based on the Gospel of Matthew before adding: ‘The Congressional Black Caucus embodies all those values.’

‘I know Sister Norma lives the lessons nuns taught me growing up,’ Biden said during the speech addressing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

‘Lessons based on the Gospel of Matthew: feed the hungry, care for the sick, welcome strangers.’

‘They echo what my dad taught me, and I mean this sincerely, my dad used to say, ‘Everyone, everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.’

The president added: ‘The Congressional Black Caucus embodies all those values,’ without correcting his mistake. 

Biden repeats the same story about a white supremacist rally twice at the same event 

As well as making in-the-moment mistakes, Biden was also berated this week for repeating the same story twice at the same event in New York City.  

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was then forced to answer for Biden’s concerning, ailing behavior in front of journalists.

She said that President Joe Biden was ‘speaking from his heart’ when he repeated the same story twice at a Wednesday night fundraiser in New York City. 

Jean-Pierre was twice asked Friday about Biden’s flub – said in a room without cameras rolling but with several journalists present due to rules about covering 2024 finance events. 

A pool report from the event, held at food security expert Amy Goldman Fowler’s home, noted that Biden talked about how the white supremacist rally – and former President Donald Trump‘s reaction to it – in Charlottesville in August 2017 inspired him to run for the White House in the 2020 cycle. 

‘A few minutes later, he told the story again, nearly word for word,’ the pool report said. 

NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell asked Friday, ‘Is it any concern that he would fully retell a story in the same space at the same event?’ as polls show that a super-majority of Americans are worried that Biden  wouldn’t be effective through a second term.

‘Sometimes I re-speak as well from here and retell a story,’ Jean-Pierre said with a laugh.  

‘But look, I think it’s important to note that the president was speaking, as you said at a fundraiser and he was speaking from his heart,’ she continued. ‘He was speaking about why he’s decided to do this.’

‘And you hear the president talk about this, it’s always incredibly emotional for him. Cause he didn’t have to. He went through an incredibly difficult time when he was deciding to jump into the race,’ she added. 

Biden refers to rapper LL Cool J as ‘LL Jay Cool J’    

Adding to the long list of problematic things the President did this week, Joe Biden referred to legendary rapper LL Cool J as a ‘boy’ after mispronouncing his name at the Congressional Black Caucus.

On Saturday night, LL Cool J and MC Lyte received Phoenix Awards for their musical contributions at the annual ceremony.

While on stage, Biden said: ‘Two of the great artists of our time representing ground-breaking legacy of hip hop in America, LL Jay Cool J, uhhh…’ – as the audience laughed at his latest gaffe over the rapper’s name.

Biden then added: ‘By the way that boy – that man’s got biceps bigger than my thighs.’

The footage of his speech was quickly re-posted by right-wing RNC Research on social media, where commentators swiftly pointed out that referring to African Americans as ‘boy’ is widely considered a derogative term. 

It was yet another butchered speech for the most powerful man in the world.  

Biden claims he’s been to ‘every mass shooting’ – which he has not  

Joe Biden also – erroneously – claimed to have been to ‘every mass shooting’ this week. 

The bizarre remark came days after he falsely claimed to have visited Ground Zero the day after 9/11, and have left many demanding to know whether he is lying or forgetting.

Speaking alongside vice-president Kamala Harris in the White House Rose Garden, he said his administration had been ‘working relentlessly to do something’.

‘After every mass shooting, we hear a simple message, the same message heard all over the country, and I’ve been to every mass shooting,’ he told his audience.

There have more than 500 mass shootings in the US this year and critics on social media were scathing in their response to the latest tall story.

‘Suspicious, if true,’ tweeted former US diplomat Alberto Fernandez.

‘Every weekend should be therefore spent in Chicago instead of Delaware,’ added Fox News contributor Joe Concha.

The news comes as a new poll from the Washington Post has Biden trailing former president Trump in a theoretical 2024 match. The two men are the frontrunners for their party’s nomination for president.  

But questions are growing louder on whether Biden should run as Democrats such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom appear to be positioning themselves to take the mantle. 

According to the WaPo polling this weekend, Biden’s approval rating stands at about 37 percent, similar to where it was in May, but five percentage points lower than it was in February.

Biden’s disapproval figure is 56 percent. The poll also asked whether, in retrospect, voters approve or disapprove of the job Trump did while in office.

Forty-eight percent say they approve and 49 percent say they disapprove. When he left office in January of 2021, Trump’s approval was closer to 38 percent.

The poll’s matchup of the two likely candidates showed Trump polling ahead of Biden by 10 percentage points – 52 to 42 – among registered voters.

The current resident of the Oval Office is also ailing in his policy record. Biden has spent many of the last several weeks touting his signature economic plan, ‘Bidenomics.’ But his earned approval rating on his handling of the economy has plummeted to 30 percent – the lowest of his presidency.

Some 75 percent of Americans believe the economy is ‘not so good,’ or ‘poor,’ according to the poll. A whopping 87 percent of Americans say that gas and energy prices are ‘not so good’ or ‘poor.’ And 91 percent of people say the same about food prices.

A plurality of respondents (44 percent) said they are not as well of financially as before Biden took office, while 39 percent said they are in about the same position, and 15 percent said they are better off.

He’s on the edge! Moment a fight breaks out at Brazil’s famous ‘cliff-hanging’ selfie spot after one man’s photo gets spoiled

• The unnamed pair fought at the top of Pedra do Telegrafo, in Rio De Janeiro
• One man pushed the other after he accidentally got in the way of his photoshoot

By Perkin Amalaraj

Published: 04:16 EDT, 22 September 2023 | Updated: 09:46 EDT, 22 September 2023

• Gabriel seemed to pick up a knock in his Brazil debut – a 5-1 win over Bolivia
• The Brazilian defender returned to the Arsenal starting XI against Man United
• Listen to the latest episode of Mail Sport’s podcast It’s All Kicking Off! 

By Dominic Hogan For Mailonline

Published: 02:26 EDT, 16 September 2023 | Updated: 03:19 EDT, 16 September 2023

Geologists have uncovered what they believe could be the world’s largest lithium deposit inside an ancient supervolcano along the Nevada-Oregon border in the US.

Clay containing up to 40 million metric tons of the precious metal was identified throughout the 28-mile-long McDermitt Caldera – nearly double what has been found in Bolivia’s salt flats that have long held the record for the most lithium deposits.

While the amount of lithium is based on estimates – no drilling has taken place – scientists have found high concentrations of lithium in the caldera since the 1970s.

As of 2022, the average battery-grade lithium carbonate price was $37,000 per metric ton, meaning the volcano is potentially sitting on $1.48 trillion worth of the precious metal.

Canada-based Lithium Americas Corporation plans to begin mining as early as 2026, mine the region for the next 40 years, and then backfill the pit. However, the plan has been criticized due to the environmental impact of mining and claims that the site is on sacred Native American land.

Lithium is a critical component for batteries that power everything from smartphones to electric vehicles and solar panels –  and China has dominated the market for decades because 90 percent of the metal mined is refined in the nation.

Anouk Borst, a geologist at KU Leuven University who was not involved in the study, told Chemistry World: ‘If you believe their back-of-the-envelope estimation, this is a very, very significant deposit of lithium.

‘It could change the dynamics of lithium globally, in terms of price, security of supply and geopolitics.’

McDermitt Caldera is believed to have formed about 19 million years ago, and last erupted 16 million years ago.

Geologists believe the eruption pushed minerals from the ground to the surface, which left lithium-rich smectite clay.

Faults and fractures also formed from the explosion that provided a way for lithium to rise to the surface of the crater. 

A lake formed within the caldera after the last eruption, and the team analyzed sediments, finding high lithium concentrations. 

The team shared in the study published in Science Advances that they hand-picked claystone samples from McDerrmitt Caldera and found they were also high in lithium concentrations.

Previous drilling in Thacker Pass, located nearby and owned by Lithium Americas, has 13.7 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent and was previously known as the largest deposit in the US.

To identify which supervolcanoes offer the best sources of lithium, researchers measured the original concentration of lithium in the magma. 

Because lithium is a volatile element that easily shifts from solid to liquid to vapor, it is tough to measure directly, and its original concentrations are poorly known.

The team looked at tiny bits of magma trapped in crystals during growth within the magma chamber. 

These ‘melt inclusions,’ completely encapsulated within the crystals, survive the supereruption and remain intact throughout the weathering process. 

As such, melt inclusions record the original concentrations of lithium and other elements in the magma. 

Researchers sliced through the host crystals to expose these preserved magma blebs, which are 10 to 100 microns in diameter, then analyzed them with the Sensitive High-Resolution Ion Microprobe in the SHRIMP-RG Laboratory at Stanford Earth.

The took is used to measure the ratio of lead to uranium to calculate the age of the mineral grain, which allowed researchers to identify the caldera’s lithium enrichment degree.

These results were then compared with data from a technique that details the chemical composition and physical properties of whole-rock samples and clay separates.

Researchers also noted in the paper that trioctahedral magnesian smectite clay minerals, which are lithium-bearing clay minerals, were found abundantly in the caldera.

Tom Benson with Lithium Americas and Columbia University told DailyMail.com that he began studying the McDermitt caldera in 2012 to understand why it contained so many different deposits.

‘I soon began to realize that Li [lithium] was the behemoth, occurring throughout the caldera from the northern tip in Oregon to the southern tip in Nevada,’ Benson said. 

Tom Benson with Lithium Americas and Columbia University told DailyMail.com that he began studying the McDermitt caldera in 2012 to understand why it contained so many different deposits.

‘I soon began to realize that Li [lithium] was the behemoth, occurring throughout the caldera from the northern tip in Oregon to the southern tip in Nevada,’ Benson said. 

‘So, I quickly changed my focus to understanding the origin of the Li deposit, as little to no information was known about its genesis at the time.’

‘This study shows caldera-wide drilling that demonstrates that this smectite to illite conversion at depth only occurs in the Montana Mountains and to the south around the Thacker Pass area. 

Benson continued to explain that lithium-bearing sediments are right at the surface of the Earth, which ‘makes the deposit one of the least impactful mines ever to be built.’

‘We will do a process called strip mining in which we dig a small hole to the bottom of the resource, and after about five years, start migrating the pit eastward, said Beson.

‘As we do that, we will start backfilling the pit (with material that has only touched the water, so it is benign to the environment – in fact, likely better because we will have removed As, Sb, and other heavy metals from the ground that are contained in the clay). 

‘Once the pit has reached its 40-year mine life, the pit will be completely backfilled and revegetated, leaving it much like how it looks today, if not more vegetated, and at a slightly lower elevation.’

Benson noted that phase one of the project aims to mine 40,000 tons annually, yielding $1.6 million in yearly revenue. 

‘The US would have its own lithium supply, and industries would be less scared about supply shortages.’ 

The US is slowly abandoning gas-powered cars for electric vehicles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – but the shift also means it will be more reliant on other countries, like China, to provide the necessary materials.

Extracting lithium on US soil would help the nation on its path to self-reliance, which the country has strived to – but has yet to obtain.

The nation is home to only one active lithium mine, Clayton Valley, near Silver Peak, Nevada, but many companies are working to change that. 

The US imports hundreds of millions of lithium-ion batteries each year, with the volume ever increasing. 

According to data from the UN Comtrade Database, China accounted for most UUS battery imports last year, with a total trade value of $9.3 billion. South Korea and Japan are popular sources, with batteries worth $1.3 and $1.0 billion imported to the U.S. in 2022. 

The total import value of lithium-ion batteries nearly tripled since 2020, reaching $13.9 billion last year.

Data has proposed that about one million metric tons of lithium will be needed to meet global demand by 2040 – an eight-fold increase from the total global production in 2022.

‘Developing a sustainable and diverse supply chain to meet lower-carbon energy and national security goals requires mining the highest-grade domestic lithium resources with the lowest waste: ore strip ratios to minimize both the volume of material extracted from the Earth,’ the researchers wrote in a study published in Science Advances.

‘Volcano sedimentary lithium resources have the potential to meet this requirement, as they tend to be shallow, high-tonnage deposits with low waste: ore strip ratios.

While the discovery could be great news for the US economy, it spells trouble for Native American tribes that claim the land is sacred.

The Paiute, Shoshone and Bannock people are pushing back on mining, stating the project would ‘authorize almost 100 acres of disturbance from 267 exploration drill sites.’

The tribes are part of the People of the Red Mountain organization, which said there are 91 significant cultural sites in the area.

‘The global search for lithium has become a form of ‘green’ colonialism,’ People of Red Mountain, an Indigenous-led organization created to protect the sacred site, said in an August statement

‘The Caldera holds many first foods, medicines, and hunting grounds for tribal people both past and present.’ 

The organization is now trying to stop on the Oregon side of the caldera.

While lithium is critical in the transition to clean energy, extracting white gold can lead to long-term ecological damage.

The lithium extraction process uses a lot of water— more than 500,000 liters per ton of lithium.

Miners drill a hole in salt flats to extract lithium and pump salty, mineral-rich brine to the surface.

After several months, the water evaporates, leaving a mixture of manganese, potassium, borax and lithium salts, filtered and placed into another evaporation pool.

After 12 and 18 months, the mixture is sufficiently filtered to extract lithium carbonate.

Over a year, producing 60,000 tons of lithium could devastate the surrounding environment – up to 30 million tons of earth needs to be dug. 

This is more than the annual amount of dirt dug up to produce all coal output of all but seven or eight US states

In May 2016, dead fish were found floating in China’s Liqi River, where a toxic chemical leaked from the Ganzizhou Rongda Lithium mine.

Cow and yak carcasses were also found floating in the river, likely killed by drinking the contaminated water.

Lithium extraction also harms the soil and causes air contamination.

In Argentina’s Salar de Hombre Muerto, residents believe lithium operations contaminated streams used by humans and livestock for crop irrigation.

In Chile, the landscape is marred by mountains of discarded salt and canals filled with contaminated water with an unnatural blue hue.

According to Guillermo Gonzalez, a lithium battery expert from the University of Chile, ‘This isn’t a green solution – it’s not a solution at all.’

BA crew are robbed in Brazil after arguing about ‘rip-off’ taxi fare and getting out of their cab in the middle of a tough neighbourhood in Rio de Janeiro

• Crew were dropped in Rio’s Penha neighbourhood, found in the city’s North Zone
• They were robbed within minutes as they waited for another cab, reports say

By Chris Jewers

Published: 08:42 EDT, 8 September 2023 | Updated: 09:45 EDT, 8 September 2023

Biden leaves for New Delhi as polls raise questions about his 2024 run

By Nikki Schwab, Senior U.S. Political Reporrter In Charleston, South Carolina

Published: 08:13 EDT, 8 September 2023 | Updated: 08:13 EDT, 8 September 2023

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President Joe Biden departed Thursday for the G20 Leaders‘ Summit in New Delhi, India after days of speculation over whether the president would catch COVID-19 from his wife and scrap the trip. 

The maskless commander-in-chief didn’t take questions from the press as he boarded Air Force One through the smaller steps.

His trip begins just 24 hours after the Department of Justice warned they would seek to indict his son Hunter on gun charges by the end of the month, and he faced criticism from 9/11 families for marking Monday’s 22nd anniversary of the attacks in Alaska.

And more poll results released by CNN on Thursday morning show the majority of voters – including Democrats – think he is too old to run, and he is neck-and neck with Donald Trump.

While press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that there were no ‘contingency plans’ being made if Biden had to skip, the White House didn’t reveal too much of Biden’s schedule either. 

He’s expected to meet with the G20’s host, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after Air Force One lands Friday and then attend G20 sessions Saturday and Sunday before jetting off to Vietnam. 

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan wouldn’t say Tuesday if Biden planned to hold bilateral meetings with two of the most controversial leaders expected to attend –  Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is skipping the meeting of the world’s richest economies amid the Ukraine invasion – sending Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in his stead – while Chinese President Xi Jinping is sitting the summit out amid tensions with host country India. 

Last week, China and India got into a diplomatic tiff over an ‘official map’ released by China that claimed lands along the Himalayas that Indian officials say belong to them. 

Xi is sending Premier Li Qiang in his place, Beijing announced Monday. 

At the briefing Tuesday, Sullivan encouraged the Chinese delegation to still play ball, despite Xi’s summit snub.

‘As far as the question of tensions between India and China affecting the summit: Really, that’s up to China,’ Sullivan said. ‘If China wants to come in and play the role of spoiler, of course, that option is available to them.’ 

Sullivan encouraged the Chinese to come to the summit ‘in a constructive way’ and work with other nations on the issues of ‘climate, on multilateral development bank reform, on debt relief, on technology’ and ‘set aside the geopolitical questions.’ 

One of the top summit agenda items for the U.S. is World Bank reform, scaling up the lender to provide funds for climate and infrastructure projects.

This move is strategic in that it could move some developing economies toward Western nations and away from the Chinese Communist Party’s lending practices, which the White House called ‘coercive and unsustainable’ when asking Congress in late August for $3.3 billion in additional funding. 

At the G7 in May in Hiroshima, Japan, some of the planned topics of discussion were overshadowed by the Ukraine war. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a surprise visit to the summit, meeting with Biden and the other leaders of the top industrialized nations. 

The dynamic will be slightly different at the G20 – in part because Zelensky wasn’t invited by India. 

India has not condemned the Ukraine war as harshly as the United States and its top allies, as Russia is an important trading partner, though Modi did meet with Zelensky on the sidelines of the G7 in Japan. 

Also while Russia was expelled from the then-G8 in March 2014 after the annexation of Crimea, territory previously held by Ukraine, it remains a member of the G20.

Lavrov will be filling in for Putin during this weekend’s Leaders’ Summit, as the Russian leader hasn’t traveled outside the country since the International Criminal Court in March issued a warrant for his arrest over war crimes, including the removal of Ukrainian children to Russia. 

Lavrov has been on a world tour this week, appearing at the ASEAN summit in Jakarta, Indonesia – which was also attended by Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Sullivan predicted there would be a ‘continued focus on how the G20 deals with Russia’s illegal and ongoing war in Ukraine.’ 

‘The reality is that Russia’s illegal war has had devastating social and economic consequences, and the poorest counties on the planet are bearing the brunt of that,’ Sullivan pointed out. 

No major headway is expected from the full G20, with Lavrov on Friday already saying that Russia would block the final declaration from the summit if it didn’t reflect Moscow’s views on Ukraine. 

Meanwhile Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a surprise trip to Kyiv earlier this week.  

With Putin and Xi skipping the G20, no meeting of Biden’s will be more closely watched than if he decides to sit down with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the sidelines of the summit.

Late last month, Axios reported that Biden was considering meeting with MBS, according to four sources in the know. 

Sullivan wouldn’t cement anything when asked about MBS – and Erdoğan – on Tuesday. 

‘I’m not going to speak to how the schedule will shape up over the course of the coming days,’ the national security adviser said. 

Sullivan said there was a ‘certain dynamic element’ to G20 scheduling, meaning that some of the meetings ‘will likely be announced at the last minute.’ 

‘And we will do our darndest to make sure that they are done in a way where the U.S. press has the ability to participate in them,’ he told the reporters in the briefing room. 

On the table, potentially, is a ‘mega-deal’ between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. that could lead to Saudi and Israel normalizing relations. 

It would be a historic breakthrough for Mideast peace. 

Officials told Axios that the administration is trying to finish its diplomatic push before the 2024 presidential election ramps up. 

While those sources pointed to how much of Biden’s time his reelection campaign will eat up, Saudi relations are not popular among swaths of the U.S. 

Besides the country’s poor treatment of women, there was the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. 

And timing of an MBS meeting could also be awkward for Biden – who has decided to skip the traditional 9/11 ceremonies to mark the anniversary of the terror attacks Monday in Alaska on his way home from India and Vietnam. 

For years, 9/11 families have gone after the Saudi government, as 15 of the 19 terrorist hijackers were Saudis. 

Hero fights jaguar with his bare hands to save his nephews when the predator attacks them during Brazil camping trip

• Erivaldo Moriman fought jaguar in bid to save his two teenage nephews in Brazil 
• Moriman survived the fight but was left with huge gashes to his head and face 
• *** WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT ***  

By Rachael Bunyan

Updated: 09:56 EDT, 23 August 2023

By Emily Joshu Health Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Published: 15:03 EDT, 16 August 2023 | Updated: 15:03 EDT, 16 August 2023

Man is arrested for ‘raping his three-year-old daughter when she came to stay with him for Father’s Day’

• The unnamed man, 46, was detained by police in Montes Claros, Brazil
• His daughter complained she was suffering pain after visiting him  

By David Averre and Rachael Bunyan

Published: 10:19 EDT, 15 August 2023 | Updated: 10:29 EDT, 15 August 2023