A Torontonian's harrowing journey home

Plus, Saturday's record-breaking rainfall and international students in limbo [The Star] First Up [By Andy Takagi] By Andy Takagi Good morning. Here’s the latest on a Toronto business owner’s harrowing journey home, the Saturday storm that made history and permit panic for international students. DON’T MISS Giovanni Capriotti for The Star gta [The owner of Toronto’s Mystic Muffin is finally home from Lebanon]( Do you know the muffin man? You can find him at Mystic Muffin once again. Elias Makhoul, the proprietor of the popular Moss Park lunch spot, had been stranded in Lebanon with his family after their Aug. 8 flight to Toronto was canceled amidst conflict in the region. It took $7,500 and pit stops across Europe to get the Makhoul family back home. [Here’s how they made it back — and what they saw along the way](. - Context: Tensions sparked at the end of July, [when Israel claimed responsibility for an airstrike that killed Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukur in southern Beirut](. - Muffin magic: [Makhoul and his wife Annie have run the Mystic Muffin together for nearly 30 years]( serving up affordable falafels and apple cakes. R.J. Johnston/The Star climate crisis [Saturday’s storm broke a decade-long record for rainfall]( Toronto’s weekend wasn’t just wet — it was historic. Saturday’s torrential rain in the city’s west end and Mississauga broke a 2013 record for the wettest day on record at Pearson Airport. Floods and power outages plagued parts of the GTA, as thunderstorms dumped 128.3 millimetres of rain at the airport. [Here’s how bad it got](. - From bad to worse: The weekend saw more rain than on July 16, when storms soaked the city, causing [widespread flooding across Toronto and potentially more than $1 billion in damage](. - Deep dive: Rainfall was especially extreme on the roads, as water pooled and swallowed up cars. [Videos posted online showed emergency services rescuing stranded drivers and pedestrians](. Canadian Press/Galit Rodan immigration [Some international students are still waiting for study permits]( Imagine you’re travelling to study in Canada. You’ve booked your flight and registered for your courses — but you still don’t have a visa. With the school year about to begin, the Star’s Nicholas Keung spoke with three international students about the panic brought on by slow immigration processing times. [Here’s why student visa backlogs are raising alarms for students and advocates](. - In limbo: “I have submitted six web forms to check on the status of my application, but only received an autoreply,” one student said. “We are treated like we don’t matter.” - Game changer: Backlogs and processing times ballooned [after the federal government changed its international student policies in January](. WHAT ELSE [Quintuplets were among the 29 Palestinians killed by Israel on Sunday]( as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits. [A First Nations consultant scolded MPPs]( at a hearing about a controversial Sir John A. Macdonald statue. Democrats are looking to build on Kamala Harris’s [momentum at the national convention](. York University and faculty are still in talks [as a potential strike or lockout looms](. [Two people have life-threatening injuries]( after a vehicle with seven youths crashed in Richmond Hill. Toronto wants to be a world-class city, but after years of construction I’m getting out — [just as soon as I sell my condo](. Toronto has a secret brood of peacocks. [Here’s how they’ve been thriving for decades](. He worked two weekends at a Toronto magic mushroom store. [Now he’s got a criminal record](. At 61, I thought joining a sailing club would shake things up. [Capsizing was more than I bargained for](. In this blistering Chinese drama, [the Shaw Festival implicates its audience in a grisly execution](. If you’re so deep in debt you can’t get out, [a consumer proposal could be right for you](. Back-to-school shopping? [Here are seven savings hacks every parent can use](. POV Andrew Francis Wallace/The Star [Toronto’s $150 million walking path is a symptom of a much larger problem.]( CLOSE-UP R.J. Johnston/The Star THE EX: I joined three of my fellow Star reporters — Mark Colley, Calvi Leon and Jermaine Wilson — on a hunt for the best eats at the CNE within a $40 budget. It should have been obvious not to get seafood at a carnival but, well, [here’s how it went down](. Thank you for reading. You can reach me and the First Up team at [firstup@thestar.ca](mailto:firstup@thestar.ca?source=newsletter&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=emailutm_email=6C53B63A8E3FAD70AD4EF13004527437&utm_campaign=frst_665). I’ll see you back here tomorrow. If you're not enjoying these emails, please tell us how we can make them better by emailing newsletterfeedback@thestar.ca. Or, if you'd prefer, you can unsubscribe from this newsletter by clicking the first link below. [Unsubscribe From This Newsletter]( [Sign Up for More Newsletters and Email Alerts]( [View in Browser]( Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. 8 Spadina Avenue, 10th Floor, Toronto, ON M5V 0S8. 416-367-2000 [PRIVACY POLICY](