But BP's disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has cast another dark shadow over the region.

ECONOMIST: New Orleans five years after Katrina

The Maremma (mah-REH-mah) is a place the guidebooks like to call "Tuscany's Wild West, " a once-forgotten region with dark legends of pirates and exiles, witches and plagues.

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Mr Lloyd, who was elected as PCC in November, said child sexual exploitation was a "hugely complex issue which casts a dark shadow" across the region.

BBC: Summit held to tackle child grooming in Greater Manchester

"If we don't remove the dams, the region will be covered by the dark cloud of uncertainty, " Masonis said.

CNN: Salmon Swimming

Roasting coffee depends on different characteristics of the bean, density, shape, growing region..all these factors decide how dark or light the roast should be.

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This is particularly true in the U.S. and Europe, where light researchers estimate that a child born today in either region has a one in 10 chance of witnessing a truly dark sky.

FORBES: Magazine Article

This week the assessment of the dark stain Sandy has left on New York City and a good chunk of the northeast region begins.

FORBES: After Sandy: Rebuilding the New York Art World

Church bells are to toll across the region at 9:30 a.m. and some websites plan to go dark in honor of the victims at the urging of Silicon Valley venture capitalist Ron Conway, who came up with the idea at a Christmas party attended by Gabby Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman who was wounded in a 2011 shooting that killed six.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Beck hopes to eventually use entire arrays of Josephson junctions to better measure quantum noise spectra in the terahertz region, noting that any anomaly there that cannot be explained by conventional physics could be a hint of dark energy.

FORBES: Dark Energy Camera Could Reshape Einstein Cosmology