Children and adults bowl, ride bumper cars and play arcade games at a fun center in Tehran. Reuters is the world’s largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters. Reuters journalists are subject to the Reuters Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests. NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here . read more

Mollyrose, a 6-year-old golden retriever, doesn’t enjoy taking a bath, but her copper-colored coat shone brightly after a recent hour-long grooming session with Mary Oquendo. Oquendo owns and operates Pawsitively Pretty, a mobile grooming salon that has catered to both canine and feline clients in the greater Danbury area since 2002. From clipping claws to trimming fur, Oquendo’s pet salon on wheels provides grooming to cats (who are rarely bathed in deference to their dislike of water) and to dogs of all sizes. She notes that she frequently grooms the largest of breeds, such as the English mastiff and the bull mastiff, which can weigh as much as 130 pounds. Oquendo has been certified by the Pet Industry Joint Action Committee as a canine specialist, and she is also a pet technician and pet first aid instructor. Dogs are securely fastened with a harness to the grooming table where Oquendo carefully dries and buffs their fur with two powerful dryers. read more

A modern and sophisticated 190-room boutique hotel in a brick corner building in downtown Boston, the Nine Zero is across the street from the Granary Burial Ground. Just past the garden is Newbury Street, Boston’s tony shopping and dining street, with high-end designer stores, distinctive and surprisingly reasonable boutiques, some excellent resale stores and, to the delight of a tea gal, several tea cafes. A bellman led us into the entrance, past bowls filled with dog biscuits and water (the “In the Doghouse” package comes with welcome treats, a pet bed in your room and referrals for pet sitting, grooming, walking and massage). The king bed was deliciously comfortable and high style, with red and black leather squares hanging down over the mustard-yellow leather headboard and a dramatically striped Egyptian cotton duvet cover over the down comforter. If the goose down pillows were unacceptable, a hotel brochure offered “selections from the pillow menu,” which included hypoallergenic foam, antibacterial fiber, buckwheat, memory foam and “magnetic. read more

The first two weekends after Thanksgiving are traditionally the busiest for Christmas tree sales, says Bob King, director of the Agriculture and Life Sciences Institute at Monroe Community College. Touch the trees to make sure the neddles are firm, says Jack Moore, co-owner of Gro-Moore Farms in Henrietta, where trees sell from $40 and up for 6- and 7-foot trees while the small “Charlie Brown” tabletop trees are $20. Also look for any signs of browning, which may indicate the tree did not get enough water, says Curt Conklin, owner of Windy Meadow Tree Farm in Sweden and president of the Christmas Tree Farm Association of New York. Its sharper needles are favored by pet owners who want to keep their dogs or cats off the trees, says Conklin. He sells cut-your-own trees at the Sweden farm for $40 for the fir varieties, $30 for spruce varieties and $25 for pines. read more