DÜSSELDORF, Germany (AP) — Ever wondered what war smells like? Or ponder the odor of love, or the stench of medieval Paris, or the sacred fragrance of religion?
A new exhibition in Germany allows visitors to discover unknown worlds of smells by sniffing their way through 81 different fragrances across 37 different galleries.
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A man smells samples of different historic Persil detergent during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
A woman explores an interactive art installation for mixing molecules that make up fragrances during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
A man puts his head into an elevator where he smells a scent based on samples that NASA collected at space during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
People smell samples of the former East Germany GDR during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
A woman smells samples during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
A woman smells samples of Afri-Cola, a popular German soft drink of the 60s and 70s during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
A woman smells samples of different lights during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Curator Robert Mueller-Gruenow smells samples during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
A woman smells samples during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
A woman smells samples of famous perfumes during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
The show “The Secret Power of Scents," which opens to the public on Wednesday at the Kunstpalast museum, in the western city of Düsseldorf, combines fragrances with art, taking visitors on a journey of more than 1,000 years of cultural history.
“This exhibition is an experiment — and an invitation for our audience to discover the history of scents with their noses,” said Felix Krämer, the museum's director general.
The exhibition follows a chronological order, from religious artifacts of the Middle Ages through to contemporary art of the 21st century. The various galleries are equipped with scent steles, atomizers and diffusers to create a connection between the art and the smell of a specific time period or cultural context.
Waves of myrrh waft through a darkened gallery of Christian wood carvings depicting various scenes from the Bible. Christianity, but also Judaism and Islam used myrrh as a symbol for prayer and purification, the show explains.
Scents evoke direct emotional reactions more strongly than any other sense. So it comes as no surprise that visitors almost retreat in fear when they press a button in a gallery about World War I. The scent released from the diffuser was created by mixing the pungent smell of gunpowder with the metallic odor of blood and sulfur.
“Anyone who has ever experienced war, conventional war, will hate it, because you can actually smell the brutality of war here,” said Robert Müller-Grünow, the show’s curator and a leading expert in the field of scent and scent technology.
“It’s the first exhibition worldwide to bring scents into a museum in this form, format and scale,” he said.
On the other side of the fragrance spectrum, there's the Venus and Adonis painting from 1610 by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens showing two lovers.
“This room is all about passion and emotions," said Müller-Grünow, adding that the smells diffused here are dominated by roses and the scent of the civet — a cat whose scent was considered erotic in the 17th century, but made today's visitors turn up their noses in disgust.
Certain smells also connect to different eras of history — pressing the button to release the stench of medieval Paris made some visitors choke when they inhaled a mix of sewage, mold and unwashed bodies.
On the other hand, in a gallery dedicated to the Roaring 20s, there's an oil painting by Gert Wollheim from 1924, called Farewell from Düsseldorf, which celebrates the liberation of women, who at the time began wearing bold lipstick, bobbed their hair and smoked cigarettes in public. The room is filled with the uplifting scent of tobacco, vanilla and leather — a mixture that's a nod to famous early fragrances such as the historic Tabac Blond which was launched by the fragrance house Caron in 1919.
Moving on to modern art, the museum presents more contemporary smells between works of Andy Warhol, Yves Klein or Günther Uecker, that remind visitors of world-famous brands such as Coca-Cola or German airline carrier Eurowings — which diffuses a pleasant and relaxing scent on the plane when passengers board.
In addition to the application of scents in marketing, the museum also shows the role of very modern scents such as the fragrance molecule “Iso E Super,” which is not a type of gasoline, but rather a dazzling scent that supposedly makes its wearers more attractive.
“It’s a fragrance that smells like cedarwood, but it also has something very velvety and skin-like about it," said the curator. “It smells very human, warm, and flatteringly approachable.”
For visitors strolling and sniffing their way through the show, which runs through March 8, the 81 different scents opened up a whole new world, visitor Kirsten Gnoth said.
“I’ve been to the collection here before, but now it’s completely new with scents that match the pictures and eras," she said. "It’s exciting to combine art with scents.”
A man smells samples of different historic Persil detergent during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
A woman explores an interactive art installation for mixing molecules that make up fragrances during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
A man puts his head into an elevator where he smells a scent based on samples that NASA collected at space during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
People smell samples of the former East Germany GDR during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
A woman smells samples during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
A woman smells samples of Afri-Cola, a popular German soft drink of the 60s and 70s during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
A woman smells samples of different lights during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Curator Robert Mueller-Gruenow smells samples during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
A woman smells samples during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
A woman smells samples of famous perfumes during the exhibition "The Secret Power of Scents", showing the history of scent from antiquity to the present as a sensory experience at the Kunstpalast art museum in Duesseldorf, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
President Donald Trump’s top Cabinet officials overseeing national security are expected back on Capitol Hill on Tuesday as questions mount over the swift escalation of U.S. military force and deadly boat strikes in international waters near Venezuela.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others are set to brief members of the House and the Senate amid congressional investigations into a military strike in September that killed two survivors of an initial attack on a boat allegedly carrying cocaine. Legal experts say it could have been a war crime, or murder. On the eve of the hearings, the U.S. military announced three more boat attacks targeting “designated terrorist organizations,” killing eight more people.
Here's the latest:
Susie Wiles sharply criticized Attorney General Pam Bondi’s handling of the Epstein case and the public’s expectations in the interview with Vanity Fair magazine that was released Tuesday.
Wiles specifically mentioned earlier in the year when Bondi distributed binders to a group of political commentators that included no new information about Epstein. Wiles also raised the issue of Bondi suggesting that a list of Epstein’s clients was on her desk and awaiting her review.
“I think she completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this,” Wiles said of Bondi. “First she gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk. There is no client list, and it sure as hell wasn’t on her desk.”
After Vanity Fair published the interview, Wiles criticized it as a “disingenuously framed hit piece” on her, Trump, the White House staff and Cabinet. She did not deny any of the comments that were attributed to her.
Trump doesn’t drink. But Susie Wiles, according to Vanity Fair magazine, says the president has “an alcoholic’s personality.”
It’s among the many unvarnished thoughts attributed to Wiles in a series of interviews Vanity Fair featured Tuesday in a lengthy two-part profile of the White House chief of staff.
Wiles has called the profile a “hit piece” but has not denied any specifics.
In one interview, Wiles says she recognizes characteristics in Trump that she saw in her father, sports broadcaster Pat Summerall, who was an alcoholic.
“High-functioning alcoholics or alcoholics in general, their personalities are exaggerated when they drink. And so I’m a little bit of an expert in big personalities,” Wiles said, adding that Trump has “a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is defending chief of staff Susie Wiles after an explosive Vanity Fair piece that featured months of Wiles’ interviews with the magazine about Trump and his second presidency.
Neither Wiles nor Leavitt are denying any specific claims or quotations in the piece. But their pushback shows an effort to blunt potential criticism of Wiles, who to this point has maintained a low profile despite her considerable influence.
“President Trump has no greater or more loyal advisor than Susie,” Leavitt posted Tuesday on social media. “The entire Administration is grateful for her steady leadership.”
Wiles managed Trump’s 2024 campaign and then he tapped her as the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff.
Prosecutors are trying to convince jurors that Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan knew what was at stake when she directed an immigrant to a private door in the courthouse to evade agents.
Jurors on Monday heard audio from the incident in which Judge Dugan told her court reporter, “I’ll get the heat,” as they discussed who would assist Eduardo Flores-Ruiz.
The prosecution continued its case Tuesday with cross examination of an FBI agent who was part of the arrest team.
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is blasting a Vanity Fair piece that featured months of interviews about Donald Trump and his second presidency.
Wiles, in a social media post, called the two-part profile “a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history.” Wiles did not deny any specific quotations attributed to her, including criticism of Attorney General Pam Bondi, calling Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy “quirky Bobby,” and saying Trump has “an alcoholic’s personality.” (The president does not drink.)
“Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out,” Wiles asserted without details.
The first woman to serve as White House chief of staff, Wiles previously has kept a low profile despite her considerable influence.
The United States gained a decent 64,000 jobs in November but lost 105,000 in October as federal workers departed after cutbacks by the Trump administration, the government said Tuesday in delayed reports. And the unemployment rate rose to 4.6%, highest since 2021.
Hiring has clearly lost momentum, hobbled by uncertainty over Trump’s tariffs and the lingering effects of high interest rates the Federal Reserve engineered in 2022 and 2023 to rein in inflation.
American companies are mostly holding onto the employees they have. But they’re reluctant to hire new ones as they struggle to assess how to use artificial intelligence and how to adjust to Trump’s unpredictable policies, especially his double-digit taxes on imports from around the world.
▶ Read more about how the uncertainty leaves jobseekers struggling to even land interviews
The Ukrainian president says proposals being negotiated with U.S. officials for a deal to end the fighting in Russia’s nearly 4-year-old invasion of his country could be finalized within days, after which American envoys will present them to the Kremlin before possible further meetings in the U.S. next weekend.
A draft peace plan discussed with the U.S. during talks in Berlin on Monday is “not perfect” but is “very workable,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters, while cautioning that some key issues — notably what happens to Ukrainian territory occupied by Russian forces — remain unresolved.
But as the spotlight shifts to Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin may balk at some of the proposals thrashed out by officials from Washington, Kyiv and Western Europe, including postwar security guarantees for Ukraine.
The security proposal discussed in Berlin will be based on Western help in keeping the Ukrainian army strong, an official from a NATO nation said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
“Europeans will lead a multinational and multi-domain force to strengthen those troops and to secure Ukraine from the land, sea and air, and the U.S. will lead a ceasefire monitoring and verification mechanism, with international participation,” the official said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated Tuesday that Russia wants a comprehensive peace deal, and that if Ukraine seeks “momentary, unsustainable solutions, we are unlikely to be ready to participate.”
“We want peace — we don’t want a truce that would give Ukraine a respite and prepare for the continuation of the war,” he told reporters. “We want to stop this war, achieve our goals, secure our interests, and guarantee peace in Europe for the future.”
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Trump Media did not respond to specific questions about the arrangement. “Neither the President nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
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By August, Crypto.com announced it was plunging roughly $1 billion worth of assets into a venture with a new partner — Trump’s social media company, which had lost hundreds of millions of dollars since its 2021 launch.
Legal and ethics experts say Crypto.com’s journey from investigative target to Trump business partner provides a case study of conflicts of interest as Trump family businesses enter lucrative arrangements with federally regulated companies, some of which have benefited from action taken by his administration.
▶ Read more from the AP investigation into Trump’s relationship with Crypto.com
Hegseth, Rubio and others are set to brief members of the House and the Senate behind closed doors as the U.S. is building up its presence with warships, flying fighter jets near Venezuelan airspace and seizing an oil tanker as part of its campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from office.
Trump’s Republican administration has not sought any authorization from Congress for action against Venezuela. But lawmakers objecting to the military incursions are pushing war powers resolutions toward potential voting this week.
▶ Read more about the briefing
The Trump administration said in a court filing Monday that the president’s White House ballroom construction project must continue for unexplained national security reasons and because a preservationists’ organization that wants it stopped has no standing to sue.
The filing was in response to a lawsuit filed last Friday by the National Trust for Historic Preservation asking a federal judge to halt President Donald Trump’s project until it goes through multiple independent reviews and a public comment period and wins approval from Congress.
The administration’s 36-page filing included a declaration from Matthew C. Quinn, deputy director of the U.S. Secret Service, the agency responsible for the security of the president and other high-ranking officials, that said more work on the site of the former White House East Wing is still needed to meet the agency’s “safety and security requirements.” The filing did not explain the specific national security concerns; the administration has offered to share classified details with the judge in a private, in-person setting without the plaintiffs present.
▶ Read more about the court filing
Here’s a look at key moments in Trump fights with the media in his second term:
The 33-page lawsuit filed in Florida accuses the BBC of broadcasting a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump,” calling it “ a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence ” the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
It accuses the BBC of “splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021” in order to ”intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said.” It seeks $5 billion in damages for defamation and $5 billion for unfair trade practices.
The broadcaster apologized last month to Trump over the edit of the speech he gave before his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. But the publicly funded BBC rejected claims it had defamed him, after Trump threatened legal action.
BBC chairman Samir Shah had called the edit an “error of judgment,” which triggered the resignations of the BBC’s top executive and its head of news.
▶ Read more about the lawsuit
President Donald Trump speaks during a Mexican Border Defense Medal presentation in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Washington, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, looks on. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
