Other days

50 YEARS AGO Nov. 19, 1968 WASHINGTON — The United States Supreme Court upheld Arkansas’s “full-crew” railroad laws Monday, saying that the place to change the laws would have to be in the state legislature or in private negotiations between the unions and the railroads, not in the courts. The laws upheld by the Supreme Court require a crew of at least six persons on most freight trains operating in the state, and require a crew of six for switching activities.

25 YEARS AGO Nov. 19, 1993 ■ The Arkansas Department of Education violated a 1989 financial settlement in the Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright said Thursday. But the judge stopped just short of reinstating the department as a party in the case. Instead, at the suggestion of other lawyers in the 11-year-old case, Wright is giving the state four months to show progress toward complying with the settlement. She also ordered the state to pay reasonable attorney fees to John Walker, who raised the question of state compliance.

10 YEARS AGO Nov. 19, 2008 ■ With a boost from its late matriarch, America’s richest family gave away more than $218 million last year, with the biggest gift going to an art museum rising not far from WalMart headquarters. The Walton Family Foundation’s giving comes as family members have watched their net worth surge. The charity’s financial holdings continued to grow in value, too, as the estate of Helen Walton granted it more than $265 million last year, according to a tax filing it released Tuesday. The foundation’s single biggest donation was a $60 million gift to Alice Walton’s Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art set to open in 2010.