Iran's currency hit a record low Monday as Washington prepared to announce new sanctions it said would be an "economic D-Day" and would add further pressure on an economy already battered by previous sanctions and a U.S. naval blockade.

The rial dropped to 2.02 million to the U.S. dollar as trading opened on informal currency markets. Iran's official Central Bank rate stood at around 1.5 million rial to the dollar, but the informal rate is what most Iranians pay.

U.S. special envoy to Syria and ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack went further on the defensive on Sunday, responding to criticism of his assessment of ongoing negotiations between Israel and Lebanon over Israeli withdrawal and the disarmament of Hezbollah.

He had said "there are two people missing from that (negotiating) table – Hezbollah and Iran." That remark prompted speculation Barrack meant Tehran and Hezbollah should join the U.S.-backed negotiations.

The U.S. special envoy to Syria and ambassador to Turkey on Sunday walked back his comments from two days ago that Israel "still" occupies the Golan Heights in violation of U.N. resolutions, remarks that went against U.S. President Donald Trump 's position on the disputed territory.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in 1981. The United Nations and most of the international community consider the territory occupied Syrian land and do not recognize Israel's annexation of it.

The foreign ministers of 11 countries are calling Israel’s airstrikes on a Syrian air base an extreme escalation.

The royal family's long-running American soap opera is returning to Britain. The question is whether it will blossom into a happy reunion or descend into anger, division and chaos.

Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, plan to return to the United Kingdom from California in a matter of weeks. They have already enrolled their children, Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, in British schools so they can start the autumn term with their classmates.

Champagne producers are racing to pick their grapes as the region's earliest harvest on record gets underway, after extreme heat and drought accelerated ripening, leaving growers a narrow window to preserve the quality of the region's world-famous sparkling wine.

On the hillsides of Hautvillers, teams of grape pickers start work at 6:30 a.m. among rows of vines that were recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2015.

Communities still recovering from last weekend's hurricane in Hawaii could get pounded again in coming days from another tropical system gaining strength over warm Pacific waters.

Hurricane Lala tore roofs off houses, uprooted trees, covered roads in mud and rocks and left many households without electricity. With thousands of homes and businesses still in the dark Thursday, forecasters warned yet another tropical cyclone is likely to approach the islands soon.

Paris Saint-Germain's opening game of its title defense in the French league against Rennes has been relocated at short notice because of damage to the champion's pitch following a heatwave this summer.

Sunday's match will now take place in Rennes, French soccer's competitions committee announced late Wednesday.

The first round of the German Cup faces disruption this weekend with several supporter groups planning major protests against the use of video technology during games.

The new German soccer season begins Friday with Bundesliga teams Eintracht Frankfurt and Stuttgart facing lower-league opposition among other games, with the first round continuing through the weekend and Monday.

The United States has demanded that Cuba open up to private investment, and Cuba has passed sweeping reforms to encourage just that. So Cuba's U.N. ambassador says he wants to know why Washington keeps piling on sanctions that stymie the very economic opening it has sought for decades.

Ambassador Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, in an interview this week with The Associated Press, directed his question to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the main architect of the Trump administration's Cuba policy: