Americans exhausted by the firehose of news in 2025 were being offered a brief respite Wednesday, as Fat Bear Week got under way in Alaska.

The annual tongue-in-cheek contest pits bears against each other as they stuff themselves with salmon to prepare for months of hibernation.

The unwitting competitors — known only by their numbers — battle it out in a series of head-to-head votes, with hundreds of thousands of people around the world expected to cast a ballot.

The winner at the end of the week will be the bear voters judge to have piled on the most pounds.

The online contest began in 2014 with just a few thousand people voting, but has now turned into an outsize exercise in democracy.

Organizers said that around 1.2 million votes were cast from more than 100 countries in Fat Bear W

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