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Several anti-vaccination protestors were arrested after staging small demonstrations in Melbourne's CBD today.

The series of planned rallies outside of vaccination hubs failed to draw big crowds.

About two dozen people were at a rally outside of Flinders Street Station where some were arrested for refusing to wear masks despite repeated warnings.

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It is believed a small business protest was hijacked by the demonstrators.

Meanwhile, there was a strong police presence at the Royal Exhibition Building, but only a few protestors were present while hundreds of people lined up to get their vaccination.

Police said two were arrested and 16 penalty notices were issued.

A 48-year-old man was arrested outside St Paul's Cathedral after failing to provide his name and address.

The Caroline Springs man has been charged with three counts of resist arrest and two counts of breaching the Chief Health Officer's directions.

READ MORE: Hundreds of primary contacts cleared as Melbourne outbreak grows

He has been bailed to appear at the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on October 28.

Police also arrested a 33-year-old man outside Flinders Street Station after failing to provide his name and address.

The Mernda man may be summonsed to appear at court at a later date pending enquiries.

Eleven people were issued with penalty notices for travelling outside their 10 -kilometre radius under the Chief Health Officer's directions.

Three people were fined for failing to wear a mask.

Regional Victoria came out of lockdown at midnight yesterday. Melbourne residents will be another week under stay-at-home orders.

A federal judge Friday overturned California’s three-decade-old ban on assault weapons, ruling that it violates the constitutional right to bear arms.

US District Judge Roger Benitez of San Diego ruled that the state’s definition of illegal military-style rifles unlawfully deprives law-abiding Californians of weapons commonly allowed in most other states and by the US Supreme Court.

“Under no level of heightened scrutiny can the law survive," Benitez said.

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He issued a permanent injunction against enforcement of the law but stayed it for 30 days to give state Attorney General Rob Bonta time to appeal.

Governor Gavin Newsom condemned the decision, calling it “a direct threat to public safety and the lives of innocent Californians, period."

In his 94-page ruling, the judge spoke favourably of modern weapons, said they were overwhelmingly used for legal reasons.

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“Like the Swiss Army knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defence weapon and homeland defence equipment. Good for both home and battle," the judge said in his ruling's introduction.

That comparison “completely undermines the credibility of this decision and is a slap in the face to the families who’ve lost loved ones to this weapon," Newsom said in a statement.

“We’re not backing down from this fight, and we’ll continue pushing for common sense gun laws that will save lives.”

Bonta called the ruling flawed and said it will be appealed.

California first restricted assault weapons in 1989, with multiple updates to the law since then.

Assault weapons as defined by the law are more dangerous than other firearms and are disproportionately used in crimes, mass shootings and against law enforcement, with more resulting casualties, the state attorney general’s office argued, and barring them “furthers the state’s important public safety interests.”

Further, a surge in sales of more than 1.16 million other types of pistols, rifles and shotguns in the last year — more than a third of them to likely first-time buyers — show that the assault weapons ban “has not prevented law-abiding citizens in the state from acquiring a range of firearms for lawful purposes, including self-defence,” the state contended in a court filing in March.

Similar assault weapon restrictions have previously been upheld by six other federal district and appeals courts, the state argued. Overturning the ban would allow not only assault rifles, but things like assault shotguns and assault pistols, state officials said.

But Benitez disagreed.

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“This case is not about extraordinary weapons lying at the outer limits of Second Amendment protection. The banned ‘assault weapons’ are not bazookas, howitzers, or machine guns. Those arms are dangerous and solely useful for military purposes," his ruling said.

Despite California's ban, there currently are an estimated 185,569 assault weapons registered with the state, the judge said.

“This is an average case about average guns used in average ways for average purposes," the ruling said. “One is to be forgiven if one is persuaded by news media and others that the nation is awash with murderous AR-15 assault rifles. The facts, however, do not support this hyperbole, and facts matter."

“In California, murder by knife occurs seven times more often than murder by rifle," he added.

In a preliminary ruling in September, Benitez said California’s complicated legal definition of assault weapons can ensnare otherwise law-abiding gun owners with criminal penalties that among other things can strip them of their Second Amendment right to own firearms.

"The burden on the core Second Amendment right, if any, is minimal,” the state argued, because the weapons can still be used — just not with the modifications that turn them into assault weapons. Modifications like a shorter barrel or collapsible stock make them more concealable, state officials said, while things like a pistol grip or thumbhole grip make them more lethal by improving their accuracy as they are fired rapidly.

The lawsuit filed by the San Diego County Gun Owners Political Action Committee, California Gun Rights Foundation, Second Amendment Foundation and Firearms Policy Coalition is among several by gun advocacy groups challenging California’s firearms laws, which are among the strictest in the nation.

The lawsuit filed in August 2019 followed a series of deadly mass shootings nationwide involving military-style rifles.

It was filed on behalf of gun owners who want to use high-capacity magazines in their legal rifles or pistols, but said they can’t because doing so would turn them into illegal assault weapons under California law. Unlike military weapons, the semi-automatic rifles fire one bullet each time the trigger is pulled, and the plaintiffs say they are legal in 41 states.

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The lawsuit said California is “one of only a small handful states to ban many of the most popular semiautomatic firearms in the nation because they possess one or more common characteristics, such as pistol grips and threaded barrels,” frequently but not exclusively along with detachable ammunition magazines.

The state is appealing Benitez’s 2017 ruling against the state’s nearly two-decade-old ban on the sales and purchases of magazines holding more than 10 bullets.

That decision triggered a weeklong buying spree before the judge halted sales during the appeal. It was upheld in August by a three-judge appellate panel, but the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals said in March that an 11-member panel will rehear the case.

The state also is appealing Benitez’s decision in April 2020 blocking a 2019 California law requiring background checks for anyone buying ammunition.

Both of those measures were championed by Newsom when he was lieutenant governor, and they were backed by voters in a 2016 ballot measure.

Stunned Melburnians have expressed their shock after a rogue deer was spotted bolting through the empty streets of inner-city suburbs amid lockdown.

Video and photos shared on social media showed the animal running through traffic, with locals reporting to have seen the animal on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning in the northern suburbs of Clifton Hill, Fitzroy and Northcote.

Some locals joked the deer was permitted to be outside so long as it followed the city's 10km travel restriction.

READ MORE: Victoria records five new local cases of COVID-19

https://twitter.com/sdanck/status/1400982500659273731

Wildlife Victoria confirmed the deer had been euthanised this morning after suffering a head injury and severe wear to its hooves.

"About six police cars and multiple vets had it surrounded near the train line but it escaped," a wildlife rescuer who attended the scene told The Age.

"It was contained in an alley a few hundred metres away [and] the vets tranquilised the deer."

How the deer ended up in Melbourne's inner-north is unknown.

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https://twitter.com/charliecross24/status/1400966296330665986

Resident Rosie Burke, who had just finished running with her boyfriend, said the deer ran past her about 10.30am on Johnston Street as she stretched on a bench.

"We saw this deer running towards us," she told The Age.

"Some people are saying it was a cow, but it was definitely a deer with full-on antlers.

"It was absolutely bizarre and shocking, and sad – he looked really scared. Luckily the road was quiet."

The bizarre incident comes after two buffalo escaped from a film set and were seen running among traffic in Sydney's inner-west suburb of Newtown in 2014.

A group of baboons were also on the loose last year in Sydney, running around the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital campus.

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Victoria's five new local cases reported today include three primary close contacts of existing cases and two cases from the same household, authorities have revealed.

One case is the second child of the family of four linked to the North Melbourne outbreak whose result was indeterminate yesterday.

Another infection is a household contact of the first worker who tested positive at the Arcare Maidstone Aged Care centre.

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https://twitter.com/VicGovDH/status/1400956637331046405

"That person has been isolating throughout their infectious period and is a close contact of the case," Health Minister Martin Foley said.

The third case is a colleague of one of the travellers who returned from Jervis Bay.

"There are a further two cases, two unlinked cases from the same household," Mr Foley said.

New cases linked to major shopping centres

Victoria's Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton said the two new cases who were not primary close contacts were linked to the exposure sites of Craigieburn Shopping Centre and Epping Plaza.

"They were frequent attendees of both of those," he said.

"We have not got a definitive crossover time with known cases, but they did get tested, or at least one of them was prompted to get tested because they saw that we had concerns about those settings as potentially at risk for people who pass and have casual contact with others."

Professor Sutton urged people who attended the multiple shopping centres listed as exposure sites to get tested even if they were not symptomatic.

Victoria's COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar said he was "so grateful" the infected person who attended the at-risk shopping centres came forward for testing.

"We have not yet formally connected the individual to the wider Whittlesea outbreak, but work and investigation is ongoing," he said.

The person's partner worked as a cleaner at a large construction site in the city, prompting 170 further workplace contacts to be placed into lockdown.

"They are now of course, since last night, going through the process of contact tracing with us to make sure that we lock all staff down," he said.

"The site is now closed and we will continue to work with them over the coming days to ensure we get those workplaces tested."

Mr Weimar said the two cases were a "real priority" for health authorities over the coming days.

Builder Probuild in a statement confirmed the cleaner for a sub-contractor who worked at its construction site on the corner of Queen and Collins streets had tested positive to COVID-19.

"Probuild's Safety Team are following government official advice to manage and contain the case," the statement read.

"Probuild has enacted a deep environmental clean of the complete site and amenities."

The site was closed today, with all workers required to get tested and isolate.

Anyone who visited the site between May 31 and June 4 must also isolate.

Health officials cleared about 600 primary close contacts yesterday, with more than 100 exposure sites also soon dropping off, as the state nears the 14-day mark of the start of the outbreak.

Victoria's COVID-19 situation in numbers

The City of Whittlesea cluster remains at 29 active cases; the Port Melbourne outbreak sits at 25 cases; the Arcare aged care cluster has six cases, with one additional close contact case added overnight.

The "highly transmissible" Delta strain outbreak sits at nine active cases, which is an increase of two from yesterday, including the second child of the second family linked to North Melbourne Primary School and a colleague of the first family.

"So we have two families of four, both active with COVID, and then one primary close contact – workplace colleague of the first case that was identified a few days ago," Mr Weimar said.

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The North Melbourne Primary School exposure site is made up of 339 primary close contacts, 82 per cent of which have now returned a negative test result.

There are five people in public housing towers also isolating after being identified as primary close contacts.

Today's local cases take the total number of infections linked to the outbreak to 69.

More than 36,000 test results were received overnight.

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Mr Foley said health authorities were concentrating their efforts on the West Melbourne and North Melbourne clusters, casting a "wide net" over the outbreaks and closely examining the instances of casual transmission in the Whittlesea and Port Melbourne outbreaks.

It comes as a new variant of COVID-19 dubbed 'Delta' or B1617.2 emerged among the North Melbourne and West Melbourne clusters.

"Public health teams have been working very closely investigating the potential origins of the emerging Delta variant and the Chief Health Officer has been working closely with interstate colleagues to try to identify that," Mr Foley said.

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