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WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 (UPI) — When Kathryn Jones began to visit Washington’s museums in January, she didn’t plan to make it her full-time pursuit. But after 112 exhibits and hundreds of hours spent inside the Smithsonian’s galleries, she discovered the miracle of the exhibits’ free access.

Somewhere between the Smithsonian American History Museum’s “America on the Move” display and the Postal Museum’s overlooked treasures, Jones found herself on a journey to read every sign and description at every museum as she took in the exhibits.

Jones’ quest reshaped her understanding of curiosity and the quiet power of public learning. “I think the more that we know, the more stories we hear, the better we can empathize with other people and problem-solve ourselves,” she said.

Now, as the doors to the Smithsonian museums remain closed amid the government shutdown, Jones and others like her are left waiting outside, reminded of what the city, and the nation, loses when history is temporarily out of reach.

Jones, a 33-year-old marketing and project management professional, started at Washington’s museums in January as a personal challenge during a career break, but that quickly turned into an ambitious exploration of the Smithsonian Institution.

“I had taken the time off just to kind of figure out what brought me joy, and I really need structure to function,” said Jones, who once served in the Peace Corps in Ukraine.

The Smithsonian is the world’s largest museum complex, encompassing 21 museums, galleries, gardens and the National Zoo. With all Smithsonian museums free in the District of Columbia — and clustered within a short walk of each other along or near the National Mall — they offer the public access to an extraordinary range of art, science and history.

“I don’t know of anywhere else in the world that there is that large of a concentration of museums that are free,” Jones said.

Since she began her journey, Jones has explored 112 exhibits — individual displays within museums that organize artifacts, stories and multimedia around a shared theme. The longest for Jones, at nearly three hours, was the “America on the Move” exhibit at the National Museum of American History.

“The more that I visit museums, the more I realize just how everything is connected,” Jones said, noting how a single object might weave through several branches of history.

For example, she told UPI the story of the Hope Diamond. It was donated by Harry Winston, the “King of Diamonds,” in 1958 to display at the Natural History Museum with French Crown Jewels. The diamond’s original mailing package is preserved across town at the Postal Museum, which still serves as a working post office.

She pointed out that the Southern Railway No. 1401 steam locomotive at the American History Museum was built directly into the museum and still rests on its tracks due to its large size. It played a ceremonial role in transporting President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s funeral train in 1945.

At the Postal Museum, she was struck by letters and a mailbox preserved from the 2001 anthrax attacks. The bacterium was sent to media figures in Washington, New York, Florida and elsewhere, and five people died.

In the historic building that houses both the American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, she discovered that the top floor once displayed patent models when the space served as the U.S. Patent Office.

Jones also said she loved the hidden connections within the Smithsonian. For example, the Asian Art and African Art museums are linked by underground tunnels, where a sprawling mural leads visitors through time.

The “very bottom level is a trick of the eye mural that takes visitors from ancient times to the first national museum, which is now the arts and industry building,” Jones explained.

For Jones, these connections reveal how different disciplines and stories echo across time.

To many visitors, the Smithsonian’s free admission policy is central to what makes it extraordinary. Funded largely through federal support and philanthropy, the system embodies a belief that education, history and art should be available to all.

Residents like Jones find this accessibility turned Washington into a living classroom, where anyone can walk from the National Air and Space Museum to the African American History and Culture Museum to encounter entire worlds of knowledge in an afternoon.

Now, with the museums temporarily closed, Jones and other enthusiasts find themselves at a loss. The silence of shuttered halls underscores what the city loses when its cultural core is inaccessible — not just a tourist attraction — but a shared public good.

The closures have prompted Jones to adapt her quest. She’s turned her attention to outdoor installations and plaques, such as outside the Natural History Museum. Even so, she misses the rhythm of discovery that came from stepping into each gallery and losing herself among artifacts and stories.

She said she sees her museum project not just as a pastime, but as a quiet form of public advocacy. She has documented her journey through the exhibits on Instagram and Tik Tok, which can be found @digitaldocent_ and @digitaldocent, respectively.

“I wanted to share the kind of information that would make someone feel more comfortable trying something they might otherwise not know a bunch about,” Jones said.

Her work online, she reported, has inspired others to see museums as approachable spaces rather than academic ones, and that these stories are often hopeful and helped her worldview become even more open-minded.

“For me, they make me feel small, but like, in a good way. They kind of remind me I’m part of something bigger, and it’s going to be fine, even though it is so chaotic right now,” she said.

As she waits for the museums to reopen, Jones’ mantra remains the same: “My goal is to make curiosity my routine.”

CONGRATULATIONS, Sir Keir! The number of people arriving here in small boats from France has reached 50,000 since your magnificent government took office.

That’s something to be proud of, isn’t it? The way things are going, you might make it 100,000 by the end of the year.

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Smashing the gangs was the plan you announced upon taking office.

It was about as much use as howling at the moon. And although you deny it, the policy seems to have been quietly shelved.

Nor will the one-in, one-out deal work. A pilot scheme which was only ever going to deal with one in 20 of the illegal migrants.

You scrapped the Rwanda plan. That at least provided SOME deterrent.

And so, like almost every other thing you turn your hand to, you’ve made things worse and worse.

So here’s my ten-point plan to stop what seems to be an unstoppable tide. It’s not really unstoppable, if you really want to do it.

1: Let it be known that anyone arriving here illegally automatically loses their right to live in the UK, in perpetuity. Cost of this? Nil.

Deterrence effect? Very high. No place to live, no permit to work, no schooling, no health care.

2: No more hotels. As Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has suggested, house the migrants who arrive in tents.

Empty every hotel which has migrants in them, immediately. Cost of this? Rather less than the hotels, I would reckon.

3: No grants for swimming lessons, gym workouts and hair extensions. No grants for anything except a ticket home.

4: Withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights and all other supranational jurisdiction which stops us from solving our own problems in our own ways. They are well past their sell-by dates, anyway.

5: Abolish the immigration tribunals, immediately. They are all presided over by judges who spend most of their lives advocating the causes of asylum seekers. The legal issue is clear: Arriving illegally means no entry.

6: In complex cases, where it is either not clear where the migrant comes from, or the country of origin refuses to have them back, send them for processing at a place under British jurisdiction.

Such as St Helena — a windswept island in the middle of the Atlantic. Or South Georgia. Or, for the really devious ones, Rockall.

7. For those who have already arrived and are currently going through the appeals process, let it be made clear that by arriving illegally they have automatically lost their right to stay here. Also, abolish all legal aid for those who have arrived.

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8: Offer those who have been here for some time £1,000 to leave the country, never to return. You could throw in some free bags of Monster Munch, and one of those neck cushions, for the flight.

9: Strike a deal with the French to allow British policemen or soldiers to puncture the boats before they leave France.

Or otherwise hole them below the waterline. It is obvious we can’t trust the French to do this.

10: Start taking things seriously, Starmer. Begin with the conviction that all who arrive illegally must go. Including those who have already arrived. And if the Left moans, so be it.

Boring tunes Taylor-made for kids

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GOT your pre-order in for the new Taylor Swift album?

Nope, me neither. But I suppose million upon million will.

Her music is bloodless and boring, written by a committee. The lyrics are naff. But she is a consummate saleswoman.

She’s already been giving teasing hints as to what’s on the new album.

It includes a cover of a George Michael song, for example. Which is, for me, another reason to stay well away from it.

Ah well, she’s what a certain section of the kids want now and I suppose I am not necessarily her target audience.

But couldn’t the kids fall in love with something a little more exciting, and dangerous, and full of adventure?

UK IN A RIGHTS MESS

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WHEN friends make constructive criticisms, we should listen.

The US State Department has just investigated human rights in the UK – something the Vice President JD Vance has been banging on about.

It says our human rights worsened last year. And it claimed there were “credible reports of serious restrictions on freedom of expression”, as well as “crimes, violence, or threats of violence motivated by antisemitism”.

That seems to me pretty much bang on.

Over the last 15 years our freedom to express ourselves has diminished and diminished.

And that trend hastened last year with the advent of a Labour government which really hates the idea that people should express themselves freely.

GOOD luck to all our readers who are about to open their A-level results today.

It’s always a fun time of year, isn’t it?

But it doesn’t really matter in the end, believe me.

And here’s a bit of advice to anyone who got lower than As and Bs.

Don’t go to university. It’s not worth the bother.

Instead, get yourself an apprenticeship and learn something useful which will keep you in work.

Soon you will be earning a decent income while the debt-laden students slum it on awful courses.

High flyer? What do you take me for?

NOW I really have heard it all. A trolley dolly has just won a discrimination case against British Airways.

Jennifer Clifford said she was too scared to fly. Being up in the air in one of those planes made her kind of stressy, you see. So she shouldn’t have been given the boot.

Do you ever get the impression that, much as the Fun Boy Three suggested all those years ago, the lunatics really have taken over the asylum?

WASHINGTON — Dressed in a pink pullover, the 17-year-old girl rested her head in her hands, weighing her bleak options from the empty room of a shelter in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

During a video call into an immigration courtroom in Manhattan, she listened as a lawyer explained to a judge how new regulations imposed by President Trump’s administration — for DNA testing, income verification and more — have hobbled efforts to reunite with her parents in the U.S. for more than 70 days.

As the administration’s aggressive efforts to curtail migration have taken shape, including unparalleled removals of men to prisons in other countries, migrant children are being separated for long periods from the relatives they had hoped to live with after crossing into the U.S.

Under the Trump rules, migrant children have stayed in shelters an average of 217 days before being released to family members, according to new data from the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. During the Biden administration, migrant children spent an average of 35 days in shelters before being released to relatives.

“Collectively, these policy changes have resulted in children across the country being separated from their loving families, while the government denies their release, unnecessarily prolonging their detention,” lawyers for the National Center for Youth Law argued in court documents submitted May 8.

The Trump administration, however, has argued that the new rules will ensure the children are put in safe homes and prevent traffickers from illegally bringing children into the country.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health secretary, told lawmakers in Congress this month: “Nobody gets a kid without showing that they are a family member.”

The family situation for the 17-year-old, and her 14-year-old brother who came with her from the Dominican Republic, is complicated. Their parents, who were living apart, were already in the U.S. Their children were trying to reunite with them to leave behind a problematic living situation with a stepmother in their home country.

After 70 days in detention, the teen girl seemed to wonder if she would ever get back to her mother or father in the U.S. If she agreed to leave America, she asked the judge, how quickly would she be sent back to her home country?

“Pretty soon,” the judge said, before adding: “It doesn’t feel nice to be in that shelter all the time.”

The siblings, whom the Associated Press agreed not to identify at the request of their mother and because they are minors, are not alone. Thousands of children have made the trek from Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico and other countries, often alone on the promise of settling with a family member already in the U.S.

They’ve faced longer waits in federal custody as officials perform DNA testing, verify family members’ incomes and inspect homes before releasing the children. The new rules also require adults who sponsor children to provide U.S.-issued identification.

The federal government released only 45 children to sponsors last month, even as more than 2,200 children remained in custody.

Child stays in shelter as Trump requires DNA testing

Under the Biden administration, officials tried to release children to eligible adult sponsors within 30 days, reuniting many families quickly. But the approach also yielded errors, with some children being released to adults who forced them to work illegally, or to people who provided clearly false identification and addresses.

Trump’s Republican administration has said its requirements will prevent children from being placed in homes where they may be at risk for abuse or exploited for child labor. Officials are conducting a review of 65,000 “notices of concerns” that were submitted to the federal government involving thousands of children who have been placed with adult sponsors since 2023.

Already, the Justice Department indicted a man on allegations he enticed a 14-year-old girl to travel from Guatemala to the U.S., then falsely claimed she was his sister to gain custody as her sponsor.

DNA testing and ID requirements for child protection are taking time

Immigration advocacy groups have sued the Trump administration seeking to block the more rigorous requirements on behalf of parents and adult siblings who are waiting to bring migrant children into their homes.

“We have a lot of children stuck … simply because they are awaiting DNA testing,” immigration lawyer Tatine Darker, of Church World Service, told the Manhattan judge as she sat next to the Dominican girl.

Five other children appeared in court that day from shelters in New York and New England, all saying they experienced delays in being released to their relatives.

The Trump administration’s latest guidance on DNA testing says the process generally takes at least two weeks, when accounting for case review and shipping results.

But some relatives have waited a month or longer just to get a test, said Molly Chew, a legal aide at Vecina. The organization is ending its work supporting guardians in reunification because of federal funding cuts and other legal and political challenges to juvenile immigration programs. DNA Diagnostics Centers, which is conducting the tests for the federal government, did not respond to a request for comment.

Plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit filed by the National Center for Youth Law have also cataloged long wait times and slow DNA results. One mother in Florida said she had been waiting at least a month just to get a DNA appointment, according to testimony submitted to the court.

Another mother waited three weeks for results. But by the time those came through in April, the Trump administration had introduced a new rule that required her to provide pay stubs she doesn’t have. She filed bank statements instead. Her children were released 10 weeks after her application was submitted, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

Many parents living in the U.S. without work authorization do not have income documents or U.S. identification documents, such as visas or driver’s licenses.

The siblings being held at the Poughkeepsie shelter are in that conundrum, said Darker, the New York immigration lawyer. They crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in March with their 25-year-old sister and her children, who were quickly deported.

Their mother said she moved to New Jersey a few years ago to earn money to support them. She couldn’t meet the new income reporting requirements. Their father, also from the Dominican Republic, lives in Boston and agreed to take them. But the DNA testing process has taken weeks. The AP could not reach him for comment.

She said her children are downcast and now simply want to return to the Dominican Republic.

“My children are going to return because they can’t take it anymore,” the mother said in Spanish. She noted that her children will have been in the shelter three months on Sunday.

Attanasio and Seitz write for the Associated Press.