Two dead in Virginia Tech University shooting – A gunman ambushed and killed a campus police officer and was later reported to have been found dead on Thursday at Virginia Tech University, the site of one of the worst shooting rampages in U.S. history. [Reuters]

Protesters ‘abused, manhandled’ at COP17 – A climate change meeting to be addressed by President Jacob Zuma took an unruly turn at the Durban City Hall on Thursday when people carrying posters reading “Zuma stand with the poor, not the USA” were attacked by supporters of the president. [iol]

Most European Leaders Agree on Fiscal Treaty – European leaders, meeting until the early hours of Friday, agreed to sign an intergovernmental treaty that would require them to enforce stricter fiscal and financial discipline in their future budgets. But efforts to get unanimity among the 27 members of the European Union, as desired by Germany, failed as Britain and Hungary refused to go along for now. [NYT]

Stocks, commodities, euro sink on EU summit doubts – Asian shares, commodities and the euro fell on Friday on growing doubts that European leaders can forge a credible borrowing scheme to tackle the euro zone’s debt crisis at a summit in Brussels. [Reuters]

Twitter introduces new look, and new HQ – Twitter has a fresh new look, which extends to its website, its iOS and Android apps, and TweetDeck. Twitter is planning a physical as well as virtual expansion: a cavernous new headquarters with room for more than four times its current staff. [CSM]

Rats Free Trapped Friends, Hint at Universal Empathy – With a few liberating swipes of their paws, a group of research rats freed trapped labmates and raised anew the possibility that empathy isn’t unique to humans and a few extra-smart animals, but is widespread in the animal world. Though more studies are needed on the rats’ motivations, it’s at least plausible they demonstrated “empathically motivated pro-social behavior.” People would generally call that helpfulness, or even kindness. [Wired]

Why Are The DSK Incident Hotel Security Guards Dancing? – Hotel CCTV images of Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the New York chambermaid who accused him of attempted rape were broadcast by French news channel BFMTV on Thursday. The former IMF chief is shown calmly leaving the Sofitel hotel May 14. Nafissatou Diallo is filmed speaking to hotel security staff, who are in turn seen performing a bizarre celebratory dance. [NYP]

Inside Romania’s secret CIA prison – One of the CIA’s most important secrets in the war on terrorism was hiding in plain sight, on a leafy residential street along a busy set of train tracks in Romania’s capital. There, tucked in the basement of a government building, the CIA ran a clandestine prison, former U.S. intelligence officials said. [AP]

Zumas’ unpaid flat bills – President Jacob Zuma and his former wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, owe their body corporate R120 000 for electricity, water and rates for two flats they own in a building in Saratoga Avenue in Berea, Joburg. [iol]

Richard Branson On Why We Must Reinvent Capitalism – “Capitalism has changed the world for the better in so many ways by creating jobs, encouraging invention and connecting people all over the world. But sadly, big business has lost its way.” [Time]

Robert Levinson, Ex-FBI Agent Gone Missing In Iran, Appears As Hostage In Video – Long after he vanished in Iran, retired FBI agent Robert Levinson reappeared in a video and a series of photographs sent to his family over the past year, transforming a mysterious disappearance into a hostage standoff with an unknown kidnapper. [huffers]

Clinic aims to prevent sex attacks by treating stalkers – Britain’s first clinic for stalkers is launched today, aiming to prevent rapes, sexual assaults and murders that result from what doctors describe as “psychological terrorism”. [Independent]