Smithsonian And National Zoo To Close After New Year's Day In Government Shutdown

As hope for a last-minute resolution to the political standoff that has triggered the government shutdown all but evaporates, Smithsonian officials announced Thursday that all of its museums, as well as the National Zoo, will be shuttered on Jan. 2 unless a deal is reached.

"There's no getting around it," Linda St. Thomas, chief spokeswoman for the Smithsonian, told NPR.

Approximately two-thirds of Smithsonian staff are federal employees, which means, come Wednesday, they'll have to join the roughly 380,000 furloughed workers who were forced to stop doing their jobs as of Saturday — the day federal funding lapsed.

The Smithsonian will remain open to the public through New Year's Day using prior-year funds, Thomas explained.

The Smithsonian's federal appropriation for the 2018 fiscal year was $1 billion, The Hill reported.

"We are very lucky that we had that [budget], especially during one of our busiest weeks of the year," she said.