Mike Huckabee, the former Republican governor of Arkansas who ran for president in 2008, spoke on Fox News Sunday about a possible 2016 candidacy, saying “maybe at this point it is 50-50” and that he’ll make his decision after the 2014 midterm elections.

Delaney Brown, an 8-year-old West Reading, Pa., girl who is terminally ill with a rare form of leukemia, saw two of her wishes come true when thousands of Christmas carolers gathered to sing outside her home and music star Taylor Swift contacted her for a video chat.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, said talks in Geneva over the country’s nuclear program are “slowly” moving forward but urged world powers to “avoid addressing issues that could be troublemaking.”

Jerrod Metsker, 24, of Smithville, Ohio, has been indicted by a grand jury on two counts of aggravated murder, three counts of kidnapping and two counts of rape in the death of 9-yearold Reann Murphy, whose body was found in a trash bin at the mobile-home park where she lived.

Hallie Twomey

of Auburn, Maine, whose son committed suicide 3½ years ago, has enlisted 150 people and received 300 more offers after asking in a Facebook post for help to honor C.J. Twomey’s memory by sprinkling his ashes around the world.

Army Cpl. Chris Petrossian, 27, who is on leave from his tour in Afghanistan, surprised his wife and two daughters with Christmas gifts like an iPad and a digital camera, all bought through donations by community members in Lodi, Calif., after thieves stole thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts Petrossian had ordered online and shipped to his home.

Jane Watrel, a spokesman for the Orange County sheriff’s office, said an evacuation and two-hour closure of Walt Disney World’s Tomorrowland attraction was prompted by a prank phone call.

Carol Ward, a pathology and anatomical sciences professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, said a group of researchers near Lake Turkana in Kenya has discovered a 1.4 million-yearold human metacarpal bone, believed to be the earliest evidence of the modern hand.

Evelyn Chang, a Taiwanese tourist who was kidnapped and whose husband was killed on the Malaysian resort island of Pom Pom on Nov. 15, has been found safe in Jolo, Philippines, after members of the Abu Sayyaf militant group released her.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/23/2013