briefs.7a

Jealousy of Kennedy cousin cited in killing

NORWALK, Conn. -- Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel felt his brother had stolen his girlfriend, a former classmate testified Friday, offering a possible motive for the 1975 slaying of Skakel's 15-year-old neighbor, Martha Moxley.

Skakel -- a 41-year-old nephew of Robert F. Kennedy's widow, Ethel -- is charged with bludgeoning Moxley to death with a golf club in their wealthy Greenwich neighborhood in 1975. Skakel and Moxley were both 15 at the time.

Prosecutors Friday also read into the record testimony from Gregory Coleman, who died after using heroin last year. Coleman claimed Skakel once told him: "I'm gonna get away with murder. I'm a Kennedy."

Investigators have said both Michael and his older brother, Thomas, were romantically interested in Moxley.

Germany's Schroeder wins battle over hair

BERLIN -- Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder won a court ruling Friday designed to end speculation he dyes his full mane of dark hair -- and boost his credibility four months before elections.

A Hamburg state court ordered German news agency DDP to not repeat a report he died his hair, saying the agency failed to properly research its story. The ruling applies just to DDP, but serves as a warning to other German media.

With a struggling economy and a strong conservative challenger, the image-conscious Schroeder faced enough problems even before the color of his hair became entangled in politics -- and questions about his credibility.

A Christian Democratic lawmaker, Karl-Josef Laumann, neatly summed up the opposition's attack on Schroeder when he recently told parliament that "a chancellor who touches up his hair will touch up any statistic."

Consumer group warns of calorie-packed pizzas

WASHINGTON -- Hold the cheese!

That's the advice for pizza lovers from a consumer group that says just one slice of a meat-covered pizza stuffed with cheese contains as much fat and calories as a McDonald's Quarter Pounder.

"While most people wouldn't unwrap and eat a second Quarter Pounder or Big Mac, many people reach for a second, third or even a fourth slice of their favorite pizza," the Center for Science in the Public Interest said Friday, issuing a survey of popular pies.

CSPI, known for its studies on fast food and movie theater popcorn, turned its sights on pizza by testing 15 kinds from 36 pizzerias in Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles. The group also used nutritional information provided by four chains: Pizza Hut, Domino's Pizza, Little Caesars and Papa John's.

The survey found that an average serving of plain cheese pizza -- two to three slices depending on the pie -- contains about 600 calories and 25 grams of fat, including 10 grams of artery-clogging saturated fat.

Air traffic glitch causes major delays for British

LONDON -- A computer glitch in Britain's state-of-the-art air traffic control system caused travel woes around the country Friday, canceling or delaying flights and stranding thousands of passengers.

Airports warned that delays could continue into Saturday.

Travelers' misery was worsened by an unrelated problem at an air traffic control center in Belgium that slowed flights across Europe.

Britain's National Air Traffic Service said a software problem forced controllers to cut by half the number of flights handled by a major center for about five hours, starting early Friday.

--From wire services