'World's best restaurant' closes

30 July 2011 Last updated at 13:08 GMT Despite its prestigious reputation, El Bulli never turned a profit A Spanish restaurant repeatedly voted the best in the world has served its final dish to the public and is closing its doors for the last time.

El Bulli, owned by award-winning chef Ferran Adria, will mark the end of a remarkable 27 years with a special sitting for staff and their families.

The restaurant, in the town of Roses, has topped a renowned World's 50 Best Restaurants list a record five times.

Mr Adria said El Bulli would re-open but as a culinary think-tank in 2014.

"El Bulli is not closing, it is transforming itself, because its soul is going to remain," he told students in Valencia earlier this month.

The restaurant, which specialised in molecular gastronomy, opened for only six months of the year and, despite its reputation, never turned a profit.

Mr Adria said the final sitting would be a tribute to all those who helped make the restaurant so prestigious.

The last menu would be secret, Spanish news agency EFE reported.

The restaurant was unconventional in many respects - it was shut for lunch to give staff time to develop new dishes - and reservations in the 50-seat venue were acquired mostly by lottery.

Continue reading the main story Baby snails in court bouillon with velvet crab in escabeche and fennel-flavoured amaranthTurtle dove with tuna medulla, enokis and samphireMonkfish liver fondue with ponzu and white sesame-flavoured kumquatDinner consisted of a set menu comprising some 40 small dishes costing about 250 euros (?220).

It was five times named best restaurant in the world by the San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants produced by Restaurant magazine, based on the opinions of some 800 chefs, critics and industry experts.

The accolade though was not one with which Mr Adria entirely concurred.

"It is not the best restaurant in the world because that does not exist," he said last week, "but it is today the most influential place in the world in terms of cuisine, and especially when it comes to creativity."

On Sunday El Bulli will relaunch as the El Bulli Foundation, a centre of research into new cooking techniques and flavours.

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Raging fire closes Los Alamos lab

28 June 2011 Last updated at 14:36 GMT Doug Tucker, Los Alamos fire chief: "We're doing our best to keep it off the lab"

One of the top nuclear weapons research facilities in the US will remain closed until Thursday as fire fighters battle a wildfire raging at its boundary.

Only "essential-duties" staff at Los Alamos National Laboratory will be permitted on site on Wednesday.

Officials at the New Mexico facility have said they detected "no off-site releases of contamination".

The town outside the laboratory in the state of New Mexico was evacuated on Monday as the fire raged nearby.

Officials said the nuclear facilities faced "no immediate threat" but warned of damage to houses.

The lab, opened during World War II, led the development of the atomic bomb.

By late Monday, the Las Conchas fire had grown to 68 sq miles (176 sq km), burning through forests, canyons, and mesas, fuelled by dry timber and powered by strong winds.

Authorities warned it could triple in size in the coming days, the Albuquerque Journal reported.

The fire had reached the lab's southwestern boundary and leapt a state road onto the land, burning roughly an acre, state fire officials said.

"No facilities face immediate threat, and all nuclear and hazardous materials are accounted for and protected," officials said in a statement.

Officials described the evacuation of the town of Los Alamos as orderly and calm

The lab employs about 11,800 people, and about 12,000 people live in the town of Los Alamos.

"That's the biggest threat we have right now to homes in the community," Deputy Los Alamos County Fire Chief Mike Thompson told the Associated Press.

The southwestern US has been stricken by giant wildfires this year, with millions of acres scorched in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas.

To the west of New Mexico, the largest wildfire in the history of the state of Arizona has been burning for nearly a month.

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