A campaign is being launched to improve public awareness of the dangers of rock fishing in an effort to substantially reduce the number of fatalities across Western Australia.

The Department of Fisheries has released the results of a survey of WA's recreational fishing take, which has found the blue swimmer crab is the most commonly caught species.

The Royal Life Saving Society says WA's latest drowning figures, which reveal a 50 per cent increase on the previous year, should serve as a warning ahead of the festive season. A new report shows 31 people drowned in the state in 2012. Children under the age of four were the highest risk group for drowning and near drowning. Older people over the age of 55 were also at risk.

The charity food provider, Foodbank, says there has been a big increase in middle class people seeking help in regional WA this holiday period.

Thieves have caused significant damage to a shopping centre while trying to steal an automatic teller machine in Albany.

Pledging to quit smoking, lose weight and get fit is pretty popular on New Years' Eve, so why do many people fail?

The Denmark Shire is proposing a plan to replace the leases at a popular holiday spot with more traditional ownership rights.

Local governments have expressed concern about a decision to kill off merger discussions between four Wheatbelt shires.

The Town of Narrogin says the latest proposal to merge with the neighbouring Narrogin Shire is just weeks from being finalised.

Police say they are concerned about an incident where a man tried to lure a teenage girl to his car.

A prominent businessman on Western Australia's south coast has been sentenced to eight years and six months in jail for attempting to hire a hitman to murder his estranged daughter-in-law. Brian Vincent Attwell paid $10,000 to an undercover police officer who had posed as a hitman in September last year. The court heard the 74-year-old was angry over legal action after his son's divorce and he was motivated by "sheer hatred" of Michelle Attwell. The trial was played recordings of the businessman saying his daughter-in-law had cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he wanted her "strangled and buried".

The Local Government Advisory Board says its decision to terminate the proposed merger of four Western Australian Wheatbelt shires was driven in part by financial concerns, a lack of common goals and the community's reaction.

A watersport based around ancient tradition, dragon boating now spans many different cultures - but the legend behind it is never forgotten.

What is it that drives somebody to strike a match that has the potential to destroy homes and lives?

Aboriginal teaching assistants whose jobs have been axed, have appealed directly to the Education Minister for their jobs to be reinstated.

There has been a mixed reaction from Western Australia's two biggest farm lobby groups to the release of further details of the Federal Government's agricultural white paper.

A reward of $50,000 is re-offered after firefighters battle more than 700 suspicious fires this season.

Detectives have charged a man with procuring a child to perform a sexual act after an encounter on a street in the centre of Denmark in the South West. The man approached her on Mitchell Street on Friday night. The 34-year-old then allegedly kissed her on the neck and asked her to engage in sexual behaviour.

A Narrogin man, who admitted to indecent dealing with his underage stepdaughter, has avoided an immediate jail term.

Former WA chief scientist Lyn Beazley says she is honoured to be named patron of an agriculture program in Manjimup.

A Western Australian eastern Wheatbelt shire says the Federal Government should not overlook the region as it develops a new drought assistance package.

The Western Australian Opposition is calling on the State Government to revisit the eligibility criteria for its concessional farming loans because of limited demand so far.

Twenty eight Australian vessels and ten New Zealand ships left Western Australia in 1914, destined for war. These are their stories.

Residents in the Great Southern town of Broomehill West have expressed frustration over a lack of information during a recent blackout.

Mount Barker wine producers say they are not too concerned by the prospect of yield losses because they are expecting a high quality vintage this year.

The Shire of Manjimup's chief executive officer, Jeremy Hubble, has resigned from after eight years in the job.

The Shire of Plantagenet is facing a shortfall of nearly $1 million in its funding for a major sporting precinct upgrade, after receiving a smaller than hoped for Western Australian Government grant.

Coronavirus is changing the way the entire human race lives. Emergency workers are scrambling together contingency plans, fearing hospitals could soon be overwhelmed. Scientists are racing to invent a faster, cheaper Covid-19 test kit available for us all. Restaurants are reinventing themselves as delivery services, artists are turning to live-streaming to make a living. This week, the entire Background Briefing team investigates how each of us are finding new ways to get by.

Wild donkeys are known as environmental pests in Australia, causing erosion and damaging vegetation, but there is growing interest in turning that pest into a profit.

Pat O'Sullivan took over the Hillston Spectator from his dad more than 60 years ago. But now, with his garden calling, the publication could be at risk of folding.

Perched 1,600 kilometres east of Brisbane, a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean hosts a landscape resembling a desert scene from the NT.

As the Cobar Endeavor Mine comes to the end of its lead and zinc reserves, CBH Resources announces it is cutting 130 jobs from the drought-stricken outback town.

Flamboyant fascinators and fedoras, once destined for fashion's grandest stages, help to overcome isolation and mental health issues in outback Australia.

The Federal Government has handed Norfolk Island a lifeline to save its tourism industry, but locals have railed against their offering saying it could turn tourists away.

Uschi Rowlands grows gourmet mushrooms in Mudgee, NSW, August 2019.

Hugh Bowman is one of the world's best jockeys and now he is set to be immortalised in art, in his home town of Dunedoo, alongside champion mare Winx.

Graham Morrison, 55, is given a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence after hitting a family car on the Newell Highway near the end of an 11-hour trip.

The largest local council in New South Wales, whose patch includes the Darling River town that experienced mass fish kills, will spend another four years in administration.

NSW Police have extradited John Bowie to Sydney to face court over the murder of his wife Roxlyn, after an investigation into her disappearance in 1982.

Deputy Premier John Barilaro watches the chopper in action alongside Dr John Greenfield.

Regional airline Rex is threatening to cut services on its Sydney-to-Dubbo and has sent a scathing letter to Dubbo households criticising their local council.

Crosswords are a daily devotion, an obsession even, for millions. But where did the crossword start, and how did it become a staple of any newspaper worth its salt?

Will personal freedom always give way to social control in China? Families have lived through a wave of revolutions in communist China and the legacy flows down the generations. Three authors talk about the cycle of openness and repression from the Cultural revolution to Tiananmen Square as individual freedoms are tolerated and then repressed to meet the goals of China's communist rulers.