Aurora

THE EVENING STAR.Larry McMurtry.Simon & Schuster.635 pages. $23. Watching "Lonesome Dove" again on TV reminded me how much I liked it and the Larry McMurtry novel on which it's based. While I once more mourned Gus' death, I couldn't help but be thankful Mr. McMurtry chose to kill off the old guy. That way, he won't be tempted into writing a sequel.I should say a bad sequel, because Mr. McMurtry has written a couple of good ones. In its own cheery, haphazard way, his 1987 novel "Texasville" was as much of a lament for the passage of time and the passing of a way of life as its predecessor, 1966's elegiac but unsentimental "The Last Picture Show."

The state has purchased easements to preserve two Baltimore County farms. The 97-acre Jenkins property, a crop farm in the 12400 block of Park Heights Ave. in the Owings Mills area, would be preserved under a $576,480 easement purchase approved this week by the state Board of Public Works, officials said. The board also approved an easement purchase of $264,110 for the 55.9-acre Zodhiates property, a tree farm in the 4200 block of Beckleysville Road in northern Baltimore County, officials said.

The evening skies blushed red and pink over Maryland this week, thrilling sky-watchers with an unusual display of Northern Lights south of the Mason-Dixon Line The vivid light shows on Wednesday and Thursday evenings were triggered by powerful solar eruptions, called coronal mass ejections, blasted toward the Earth earlier in the week. "There were gasps and wows galore," said Jerry Persall, president of the Howard Astronomical League, who watched Thursday's events with a half-dozen HAL members at Carrs Mill Park near Lisbon.

Place-kicker Scott Bentley of Aurora (Colo.) Overland switched from Notre Dame to Florida State in the final weekend of college football recruiting.Florida State has lost two straight games to Miami because kickers missed field-goal tries in the final seconds.Quarterback Thad Busby, linebacker Daryl Bush, receiver Andre Cooper and defensive end Julian Pittman also are going to Florida State.Quarterback Ron Powlus of Berwick, Pa., signed with Notre Dame.Though Florida State had the best overall group, Notre Dame recruited the top offensive class and Michigan had the finest defenders.

CHICAGO -- In the first action of its kind in the nation, the U.S. Justice Department yesterday sued the state of Illinois and the city of Aurora, accusing them of violating the rights of workers with disabilities by denying them pension benefits.Justice Department officials say it is the first case in which the federal government has gone to court to enforce the employment provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, which took effect in July 1992.James Turner, acting head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said the suit was intended to send a signal that the department was "serious about this responsibility."

AURORA, Ill. -- Dr. Aleksander Jakubowski, frequent target for increasingly violent attacks by anti-abortion demonstrators, takes a surprisingly mild view of the protesters who often clamor outside his office.The 53-year-old physician came to the United States as a Cold War refugee in 1968. And because he can remember the absence of freedom in the then-Communist bloc, he doesn't become deeply perturbed by the demonstrations."When you look out the window and see people protesting peacefully, you say, 'I'm in America,' " he said.

A series of eruptions on the sun delivered a rare and colorful display of the northern lights to Marylanders and sky watchers across much of the United States late Sunday. Those who missed the first show might be able to catch an encore this week. Norm Lewis, WMAR-TV's weatherman, got a good look at Sunday's display of the aurora borealis from his backyard observatory in Mt. Airy. "I've seen it before out here, but last night was unbelievable," he said. "Most of it was green, with some red mixed in. It started out ... looking like a long cloud.

AURORA, Colo. - Bugsy was a tough cat who could stare down a fox and run like a rabbit. But one night the tabby met up with something darker and more menacing than a fox, something he couldn't outrun. The next morning, Christy Hughes found her bruising 12-pound cat on the lawn. "I can't get the visual out of my head," a shaken Hughes recalled, looking at the spot where Bugsy lay two weeks ago. "It's sick." The cat had been dissected with near surgical precision. No one heard or saw anything.

Chita Rivera is a dancer who gets a kick out of life -- even when life kicks back.A positive attitude is a handy thing to have when you're playing a character who represents death. That's been Rivera's lot for more than three years as the title character in the musical "Kiss of the Spider Woman," which opens tomorrow at the Mechanic Theatre.Rivera, who won her second Tony Award for "Spider Woman," admits that when she's perched high in the Spider Woman's giant web, she often feels the presence of the many friends she's lost over the years.

It arrived a day late, but that blast of magnetic energy that erupted from the sun on Monday has finally blown past the Earth. It triggered changes in the Earth's magnetic field and brilliant auroral displays as far south as Boston, but no reported damage.Excited scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt said the solar storm's impact was first detected at about 8 p.m. Thursday, and continued to be felt for at least 18 hours. Its arrival produced a flood of data from a new fleet of satellites and ground stations.