The prison was a grim, intimidating place, crowded with members of the port city's warring drug gangs.

In the building next door, families scratch desperately through thumbnail photos scattered in piles on the concrete floor – face after face staring grim and blank, silent witnesses to the years of Assad's rule.

"After that door, you are a dead person," he says softly in an interview at his family home in a town south of Damascus, as relatives gather around sipping coffee and nodding in grim captivation.

There was a grim sense that San Francisco had lost control of its street life — and some of its charm.

Wildlife officials believe the lion instead probably ventured out and was killed by a car over the summer — another grim conjecture big cat fans feared would come to pass.