Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) — Americans exhausted by the firehose of news in 2025 were being offered a brief respite Wednesday, as Fat Bear Week got underway 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 mo

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