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A man will remain behind bars after facing court charged with the attempted stabbing murder of an on-duty paramedic.

The Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance paramedic was allegedly stabbed in the neck and face in an unprovoked attack as he waited for a coffee outside a cafe in Reservoir in Melbourne's north yesterday.

The paramedic, who recently became a father, was taken to hospital with stab wounds to his face and neck in a stable condition after a passerby came to his rescue.

READ MORE: Man charged after paramedic stabbed while stopping for coffee

Mohamud Ali, 32, was charged with attempted murder and made no application for bail in a brief hearing at Melbourne Magistrates Court this morning.

Police allege he got out of a small, red car and stabbed the paramedic in the upper body before fleeing in the vehicle.

The court heard it was Ali's first time in custody and he had no diagnosed medical conditions, although was prescribed diazepam by his general practitioner.

He is slated to return to court on August 7.

There is a minimum jail term of six months for people who injure emergency workers in Victoria, but the law only applies to emergency workers who are "on duty" at the time.

Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill said the loophole had been exposed by the incident and another recent case involving a female paramedic who was not treating a patient when she was attacked.

The definition of "on duty" refers to when a paramedic is providing care to a patient, he said.

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Premier Jacinta Allan has committed to fixing the laws in response to the incident, and victims and unions raising the "loopholes" issue.

Her government will ask the Victorian Law Reform Commission to review the definition of "on duty".

Shadow attorney-general James Newbury called the review "offensive" and accused Allan of "sitting on her hands".

"Our emergency service workers deserve more than another review," he said.

The opposition has vowed to introduce a private members bill in the next parliamentary sitting period to ensure emergency services workers are protected at all times.

Deputy Premier Ben Carroll conceded it was "fair" to point out the failure of the current laws to cover this specific incident.

He said the definition of "on duty" would be clarified as soon as possible to cover emergency workers "walking around in uniform".

"No ifs, no buts," Carroll told reporters today.

The laws were tightened in 2020 after James Haberfield, 22, avoided a prison term despite admitting to attacking a paramedic at a musical festival while on a cocktail of drugs.

Haberfield was ordered to serve an 18-month community corrections order and undergo treatment for schizophrenia, which he suffered at the time of the attack.

The change meant offenders could no longer rely on a "special reasons" clause if their mental state was self-induced by alcohol or drug use.

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WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this story contains the image of a person who is deceased.

Liberal Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price labelled the suspected murder of her niece, Kumanjayi Little Baby, a "national disgrace" as she called for an independent inquiry.

The five-year-old girl was found dead yesterday, about five days after going missing from an Alice Springs town camp.

In an opinion piece titled "tragic case highlights a national disgrace" published in The Australian, Price said the town camp at the centre of the incident had a history of violence, including the fatal stabbing of her niece.

READ MORE: 'Coming for you': Police warning to associates of suspected child killer

"For too long, there has been a reluctance to speak plainly about the conditions in and around town camps," she wrote.

"In reality, too many have become environments where safety is not guaranteed, particularly for children."

Price called for an independent inquiry into the circumstances of the death and broader conditions, including the governance of town camps and the role of organisations responsible for their upkeep.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor similarly told Sky News the federal government needs to "get out of denial" about the situation in Alice Springs and other communities.

"It's the denial that has led us to this place where people aren't prepared to have honest conversations about the state of affairs in our town camps, and what options there are to address it," he said.

"There is violence going on. There is sexual violence.

"We took to the last election a proposal for a royal commission, an independent inquiry into sexual abuse and violence in these communities, and we still think that that is something that needs to be addressed."

READ MORE: Family's message after five-year-old murdered

Taylor's comments came as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called for calm after 400 people gathered outside Alice Springs Hospital last night, where 47-year-old Jefferson Lewis was taken after he was arrested by police.

Albanese said he understood the community's anger and frustration, but called for them to come together.

"It breaks your heart," he said of Kumanjayi Little Baby's death to reporters in Sydney.

"There's meetings there on the ground, as we speak right now, bringing together community leaders, the police, the health workers, the people at the hospital who had to deal with what occurred last night.

"We want to see the community come together, but we certainly understand people's anger and frustration and that was expressed."

Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy also called for calm earlier today, telling the community to allow police to undergo proper processes.

"There needs to be calm and there needs to be a proper process now in terms of this criminal investigation and it must not be jeopardised by foolishness in terms of the work that has to be done for police and by police to get this investigation done appropriately," she told the ABC.

READ MORE: Jacinta Price reveals she's aunt of NT girl believed to have been abducted

Independent senator and leader of the Blak Sovereign Movement, Lidia Thorpe, said it was a time of "deep grief" for her community and called for the government to address broad issues like extreme poverty and a lack of basic services and support.

She, however, warned against any interventionist approaches.

"Governments must do more to ensure communities have the resources and authority to determine their own solutions," she said in a statement. 

"Our families hold the answers and must be trusted and empowered to lead. What we do not need is a return to the interventionist approaches of the past."

Thorpe said the death of Kumanjayi Little Baby highlighted "serious failures" in how authorities respond to the domestic violence risk to Indigenous women and children.

She threw her support behind National Commissioner for Indigenous Children and Young People Sue-Anne Hunter's call for an investigation into NT Corrections.

"This was a known perpetrator. There are questions about how this could happen so soon after his release from custody," she said. 

For 24/7 crisis support run by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, contact 13YARN (13 92 76).

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732)

A highly contagious and deadly disease that has not been contracted in Australia for 54 years has been detected in sewage in Perth.

Health officials say evidence of a vaccine-derived poliovirus strain was found in a sample of untreated wastewater at the Subiaco wastewater treatment plant in mid-April.

It is the first time this particular strain has been discovered in Australia, after similar detections were reported in Europe in 2024 and 2025.

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The detections in Europe did not lead to any cases of polio.

The strain found in Perth is likely linked to a person from overseas, according to the Australian Centre for Disease Control.

Vaccine-derived poliovirus, which was found in a wastewater sample, is rare but can be detected in regions where oral polio vaccines are used.

Sanjaya Senanayake, Associate Professor of Medicine at the Australian National University, said the chance of this developing into a live polio case is low.

"The good news is that in a highly immunised country like Australia, the chance of this vaccine-derived strain of poliovirus causing cases of polio is extremely unlikely," Senanayake said.

"Furthermore, outbreaks of polio in our region have been few and far between, although they have occurred in the Philippines, Indonesia and PNG."

The detection has been labelled "significant", but officials said it was not evidence of the spread of polio in Australia.

"Wastewater surveillance is designed to give us early warning, so health authorities can take precautionary action," Australian Centre for Disease Control Director-General Professor Zoe Wainer said.

"Wastewater surveillance is designed to give us early warning, so health authorities can take precautionary action.

"This is an environmental detection, not a clinical case.

"No cases of polio have been identified, and there is no evidence of local transmission."

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Wainer said Australia remains polio-free and the detection in Perth does not impact this status.

The WA government will increase testing at the Subiaco wastewater plant to weekly for six months in response to the detection.

The last case of locally-acquired polio was in 1972.

Wild poliovirus type 1 is still circulating across Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (VDPV2), a different strain, was also detected during routine wastewater sampling in Melbourne in 2024.

It did not lead to any cases of polio in Australia.

What is poliovirus?

Polio, or poliomyelitis, is a highly contagious viral infection that can cause paralysis and death.

It can be contracted in two ways, according to Senanayake.

"The first is through 'natural' circulating virus. This still occurs in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where there have been challenges with their vaccination programs," she explained.

"Another way is through infection with mutated forms of virus derived from the oral polio vaccine, which are shed in faeces.

"It is one of these vaccine-derived strains that have been detected in Western Australian wastewater."

It mainly affects children under five.

Australia has a polio vaccine which protects against types 1, 2 and 3.

Around 93 per cent of children aged five years are fully vaccinated against polio in Australia, which is below the global target of 95 per cent.

Australia was declared polio-free in 2000, and the only case of polio detected in the country since then was in 2007, when an overseas-born student contracted the disease while abroad.

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Rain, gusty winds and thunderstorms are set to roll across southern Australia to end the week, ending the recent run of warm, dry weather.

A low-pressure system is driving the change, sending a cold front and trough from west to east starting today.

Showers, thunderstorms, and strong winds are forecast to sweep across southern Australia as the front advances.

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Southern Western Australia is expected to experience these conditions from today, with South Australia following tomorrow.

Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales, and the Australian Capital Territory are set for wet weather over the weekend.

Rain will spread across a wide stretch of the south, although totals will vary. Some areas could pick up 10 to 20mm, with isolated falls above 40mm possible, particularly where thunderstorms develop.

Winds are set to pick up ahead of the front, with strengthening northerlies giving way to cooler west to south-westerly winds as it passes through.

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Damaging gusts are possible in parts of South Australia and western Victoria on Saturday, extending to elevated areas of eastern Victoria and south-east New South Wales on Sunday.

Temperatures are expected to ease by around 5 to 10 degrees across much of the south as the system moves through.

Adelaide is forecast to drop back to about 19 degrees on Sunday and Monday after reaching the high 20s earlier in the week. 

Meanwhile, Melbourne is expected to ease from about 26 degrees on Friday to 22 degrees by Sunday, while Hobart will fall from the mid-20s to around 19 by Monday.

Canberra is also set to cool, slipping from the low 20s over the weekend to about 17 degrees by Tuesday.

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The president has flagged pulling American troops from NATO countries that don't tow his line over Iran.

The US state of Louisiana has suspended voting in an election due to begin tomorrow in order to redraw districts to elect another Republican member of Congress.

The primary election for House of Representatives races has been suspended, Secretary of State Nancy Landry announced.

The move comes as the state government looks to redraw the boundaries of the districts to draw a black Democrat out of his seat.

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Trump praised the governor for the move, which will give Republicans an extra seat in Congress.

"Thank you to the Great Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, for his leadership on the very important Callais case, and for moving so quickly to fix the Unconstitutionality of Louisiana's Congressional Maps," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

"He has shown tremendous Vision, Strength, and Leadership."

Jeff Landry and Nancy Landry are not related.

In Louisiana, like in many US states, state politicians draw the electoral maps, usually to benefit their own party.

A redrawing of the Louisiana map could make for an all-white delegation in Congress in a state where black voters account for 31 per cent of the population.

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Trump said he was now pushing for a redraw of the map in Tennessee.

"I had a very good conversation with Governor Bill Lee, of Tennessee, this morning, wherein he stated that he would work hard to correct the unconstitutional flaw in the Congressional Maps of the Great State of Tennessee," he said.

"This should give us one extra seat, and help Save our Country from the Radical Left Democrats, and their Country destroying Policies of High Tax, Open Borders, Transgender Mutilization (sic), Defunding the Police, ICE, and Border Patrol, No Voter ID, Soft on Crime, and so much more."

The moves come after the US Supreme Court overturned a law which has shaped elections for decades.

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In response to southern states deliberately drawing maps designed to deny black politicians being elected, a 1965 law required districts to be drawn to ensure minority representation.

But much of that law was struck down in a 6-3 decision yesterday.

As a consequence, a series of southern states are redrawing their maps to ensure as few districts as possible have a majority of non-white voters in them.

In Alabama, senior Republicans are today pushing to draw the state's two black representatives out of their seats.

And in Florida, a map was passed yesterday that would deliberately split a heavily Puerto Rican district into several white-majority districts.

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Before the Voting Rights Act, no black person had been elected to Congress for close to a century in the Deep South, despite black people accounting for a majority of the population in many of those states.

In the US south, white voters overwhelmingly vote for Republicans and black voters overwhelmingly back Democrats.

READ MORE: Trump celebrates Supreme Court decision that could sway elections

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