North Korea says it

conducted test

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says it has successfully carried out a hydrogen bomb test, which if confirmed, will be a first for the isolated regime and a significant advancement

for its military ambitions. The U.S. administration said it could take days to obtain the scientific data to determine

whether this was a successful test. South Korea said it found it difficult to believe North Korea could test a hydrogen bomb. The United Nations Security Council will hold a

meeting later Wednesday to discuss the situation. Kim Jong Un made the final decision on January 3 to carry out the

hydrogen test and conducted the hydrogen bomb test on January 6. It was also announced on North Korean television that they had tested a "miniaturized" hydrogen bomb, for the

purposes of elevating the country's "nuclear might to the next level" and providing it with a weapon to defend against the United States and its other enemies. Nuclear weapons

based on fission -- such as the atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 -- typically have a yield of around 10 - 15 kilotons, while nuclear weapons employing fusion can have a yield measured in megatons…much more

powerful. If a nuclear device has been detonated, it underlines the very real threat that North Korea represents

to regional and international security.

In Other NewsIn Other News Twitter appears ready to loosen its decade-old restriction on the length of messages in a

bid to make its service more appealing to a wider audience accustomed to the greater freedom offered by Facebook and other forums. CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey provided a tweet posted Tuesday saying the company is looking into increasing its limits on text from 140 characters to as many as 10,000. After a long streak of tremendous growth that turned it into one of the Internet's hottest companies, Twitter's growth has slowed dramatically during the past year-and-half to leave it scrambling to catch up with social networking leader Facebook and its 1.5 billion users. Dorsey helped invent Twitter in 2006 and imposed a 140-character limit on messages so the service would be easy to use on cellphones that had 160-character limits on texts at that time. Those texting limits on phones faded away several years ago as the advent of smartphones enabled people to use other Internet messaging services, making Twitter's restrictions look increasingly antiquated.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government said about 1.1 million asylum seekers entered Germany last year, reaching a record as Europe struggles to manage the influx of refugees from the Middle East and beyond. More than a third of the number of refugees fled the civil war in Syria.

Neshaminy High School basketball coach, Jerry Devine, has been placed on administrative leave after a confrontation with a referee, which was caught on camera Tuesday night. The video shows Devine apparently head butting one of the PIAA officials after a called foul in a game against Pennsbury. The Neshaminy School District released the following statement Wednesday morning: "Mr. Devine has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of that review for both his teaching and coaching positions. The athletic program at Neshaminy places the values of fair play and sportsmanlike conduct above all. We expect our coaches and staff to teach and uphold those principles, while acting in a professional manner at all times.” Devine was ejected from the game after the incident.