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A cool change is beginning to sweep through south-east Queensland after a week of wild weather.

"We'll see a south-easterly change push through south-eastern Queensland later tonight and into early Saturday. That'll cool temperatures down by about 5-7 degrees," the Bureau of Meteorology's Pieter Claassen said.

While the clouds took the sting out of today, it also means less solar energy in the network, putting more pressure on the electricity grid.

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A new peak for electricity use could be reached tonight.

The cool change follows destructive storms while the south-east sweltered through a heatwave.

Temperatures today peaked at 34 degrees on the Gold Coast and 36 degrees in Brisbane.

Queensland's first cyclone for the year could also be brewing as meteorologists watch a developing low in the far north.

"We do see the potential for a tropical low to form somewhere in the Coral Sea, and potentially the risk of that low developing later in the week does increase," Claassen said.

If it develops, the cyclone would be named Taliah. 

Wild storms smashed parts of Queensland and northern NSW yesterday with hail, heavy rain and damaging winds.

On the Southern Gold Coast crews are still mopping up after yesterday's wild deluge. 

Winds exceeding 90km/h blew away entire market stalls at Coolangatta.

The winds brought down trees and toppled scaffolding while more than 14,000 homes and businesses lost power.

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The Bureau of Meteorology warns isolated thunderstorms could develop again today.

Much of the country will experience warm days and nights into the weekend.

Western Australia will also experience severe to extreme heatwave conditions today, particularly across the Central Wheat Belt, Great Southern, Goldfields and South Interior districts.

A severe storm also ripped through the Pilbara yesterday evening with wind gusts above 100km/h.

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A highway patrol officer is fighting for life and a driver has been taken to hospital after a crash involving a police vehicle and a truck on the Cunningham Highway in Queensland's Scenic Rim.

Senior constable Chris Leonard, believed to be in his 50s, was freed an hour after becoming trapped in the police vehicle following the truck rollover at about 1pm (2pm AEDT).

9News understands the officer was trying to pull over another vehicle when he crashed head-on with a truck.

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Paramedics began treating him for life-threatening head and arm injuries while he was still inside the vehicle.

Another patient, understood to be the driver of the truck, has been transported in a stable condition to Ipswich Hospital.

The driver of the truck was treated for minor injuries.

A rescue helicopter was dispatched to the scene, according to Queensland Ambulance Service.

The officer, a senior constable who was on duty at the time of the crash, was taken to the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital.

https://twitter.com/QldPolice/status/1882629516943855982?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

"He comes to work each and every day to keep our community safe," Ipswich District Superintendent Kylie Rigg said.

"So it's quite a sad day today that this officer has himself been involved in a truck and crash.

"We have police supporting the officer's family, and of course, we support all of the officers here from the Ipswich district, as we come to terms with the officers' significant injuries the next few days, the weeks and the months ahead will be a long road, and we very much open he has a full recovery."

Rigg said the officer's wife was by his bedside in hospital.

"I understand a nurse did stop and render assistance to the officer – we are very grateful for her assistance at that time," Rigg said.

Firefighting crews were forced to cut through the mangled wreckage to give paramedics access.

"We obviously don't have police involved in traffic crashes often," Rigg said.

"This is certainly the most significant in my time at Ipswich."

Footage captured by the 9News helicopter showed a marked police van that had come off the road and a truck on its side blocking both lanes of the highway.

The Cunningham Highway is closed near Warrill View Peak Crossing Road and motorists are advised to avoid the area.

Queensland Police said the Forensic Crash Unit are on scene.

The circumstances that lead up to the crash have not yet been revealed.

Anyone who witnessed the accident has been asked to come forward.

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Rates of gestational diabetes, a dangerous pregnancy condition, are surging by 70 per cent across Australia.

The disease is a form of high blood sugar during pregnancy, which raises the risk of mothers developing type-2 diabetes tenfold, putting their babies in danger.

"Anything related to diabetes increasing in Australia is concerning," Dr Gary Deed told 9News.

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"It can make (the babies) fatter and bigger, and then that makes the birth harder," Chief Medical Officer of Diabetes Australia Professor David Simmons said.

That can lead to serious complications like preeclampsia and preterm birth.

"If the baby is big then it can have difficulty coming out of the birth canal because the fat can be on the shoulders, and that can lead to a break in the collar bone, damage to the nerve," Simmons said.

In a study of more than 1.8 million women, the rate of gestational diabetes has skyrocketed from 8.2 per cent to 12.2 per cent nationally.

The biggest jumps were in the Northern Territory, where it tripled in six years, while cases doubled in Victoria.

NSW recorded the smallest increase, but still a rise of 4 per cent.

Experts say the biggest risk factor is the nation's growing obesity epidemic.

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"We do know that lifestyle now is not how it used to be, that people are eating many more calories perhaps than they used to," Simmons said. 

"Physical activity is not to the same level as it used to be."

Certain ethnic groups and those from low socioeconomic backgrounds have also urged to be cautious.

"Because there are many challenges to eating healthy food which can often be more expensive, for example, or may not be able to be readily accessed by some people," Simmons said.

Experts say seeing a GP in the early stages of pregnancy is key to managing and preventing gestational diabetes. 

Those found to be at risk can receive support to monitor their weight and glucose levels.

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Vandals have targeted the busts of former Australian prime ministers in Victoria in an attack police believe is politically motivated ahead of Australia Day. 

Police say about 20 statues were damaged at Prime Ministers Avenue in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens between 2am and 5am yesterday.

It is understood the heads of former Labor prime ministers Paul Keating and Kevin Rudd were decapitated with an angle grinder and stolen.

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The name plates of the remaining 18 statues were covered in spray paint.

The total damage is estimated to be more than $140,000.

Victoria Police Senior Seargent Brad Hall said the "senseless" attack was believed to be politically motivated ahead of Australia Day.

"There was some other commentary around about the Commonwealth will fall and other sort of political rhetoric," he said.

Police have released CCTV images of those believed to be responsible and a white ute used to flee the scene.

It's believed up to four people are involved. 

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Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who is vying to be prime minister himself, condemned the attack today.

"I think it should be condemned and we should have great respect for our former prime ministers regardless of whether they're Liberal or Labor," he said.

The City of Ballarat said the attack was "completely unacceptable".

"It is not only extremely costly to our ratepayers and will divert money away from critical Council services, but it detracts from Ballarat as a city," the city said in a social media post.

The sculptor behind the busts, Peter Nicholson, said they were there to educate.

"It's a way of discussing politics that I think is really important," he said.

"I was really shocked, especially with the extent of (the damage)."

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A team of conservators will now assess the damage and undertake the time-consuming process of restoring each bust.

Police are searching for those responsible and are keen to speak to anyone who saw suspicious behaviour in the area.

The vandalism occurred on the same night as another attack, with a prominent statue of Captain Cook being defaced in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

It comes nearly a year after vandals hacked off a Captain Cook statue in St Kilda.

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A teenager who stabbed three young girls to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England has been sentenced to more than 50 years in prison for what a judge called "the most extreme, shocking and exceptionally serious crime".

Judge Julian Goose said 18-year-old Axel Rudakubana "wanted to try and carry out mass murder of innocent, happy young girls" and planned to kill as many people as he could.

Goose said that he couldn't impose a sentence of life without parole, because Rudakabana was under 18 at the time of the crime.

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But the judge said he must serve more than 51 years before being considered for parole and "it is likely he will never be released".

Rudakbuana was 17 when he attacked the children in the seaside town of Southport in July. He killed girls Alice Da Silva Aguiar, nine, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Bebe King, six. Eight other girls, ranging in age from seven to 13, were wounded, along with Lucas and John Hayes, who worked in a business next door and intervened.

The attack shocked the country and set off both street violence and soul-searching. The government has announced a public inquiry into how the system failed to stop the killer, who had been referred to the authorities multiple times over his obsession with violence.

Defendant disrupts the hearing

Rudakubana faced three counts of murder, 10 of attempted murder for those he wounded, and additional charges of possessing a knife, the poison ricin and an al-Qaida manual. He unexpectedly changed his plea to guilty on all charges on Monday.

But he wasn't in court to hear the passing of the sentence on Thursday.

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Hours earlier he had been led into the dock at Liverpool Crown Court in north-west England, dressed in a grey prison tracksuit.

But as prosecutors began outlining the evidence, Rudakubana interrupted by shouting from the dock that he felt ill and wanted to see a paramedic.

Goose urged lawyers to continue, then ordered the accused to be removed when he continued shouting. A person in the courtroom shouted "Coward!" as Rudakubana was taken out.

The hearing continued without him.

Horror on a summer day

The attack occurred on the first day of summer holidays when two dozen little girls were "gathered around the tables making bracelets and singing along to Taylor Swift songs", prosecutor Deanna Heer told the court. Rudakubana, armed with a large knife, intruded and began stabbing the girls and their teacher.

He lunged at each child in turn, the prosecutor said, acting so quickly that it was only when teacher Leanne Lucas was stabbed herself that she realised what was happening.

The court was shown video of Rudakubana arriving at the Hart Space venue in a taxi and entering the building. Within seconds, screams erupted and children ran from the building in panic, some of them wounded. One girl made it to the doorway, but was pulled back inside by the attacker. She was stabbed 32 times but survived.

Gasps and sobs could be heard in court as the videos played.

Heer said two of the dead children "suffered particularly horrific injuries which are difficult to explain as anything other than sadistic in nature". One of the dead girls had 122 injuries, while another suffered 85 wounds.

Wrenching testimony from victims

Several relatives and survivors read emotional statements in court about the impact of the attack.

Lucas, 36, who ran the dance class, said "the trauma of being both a victim and a witness has been horrendous".

"I cannot give myself compassion or accept praise, as how can I live knowing I survived when children died?" she said.

A 14-year-old survivor, who can't be named because of a court order, described her serious injuries and said that while she was physically recovering.

"We will all have to live with the mental pain from that day forever," she said.

"I hope you spend the rest of your life knowing that we think you're a coward."

The prosecutor read out a statement from the parents of Alice da Silva Aguiar, who said their daughter's killing had "shattered our souls".

"We used to cook for three. Now we only cook for two. It doesn't seem right," they said.

"Alice was our purpose for living, so what do we do now?"

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A teenager obsessed with violence

The prosecutor said Rudakubana had no political or religious cause, but had "a longstanding obsession with violence, killing, genocide".

"His only purpose was to kill. And he targeted the youngest and most vulnerable in society," Heer said, as relatives of the victims watched on.

Heer said that when he was taken to a police station, Rudakubana was heard to say: "It's a good thing those children are dead, I'm so glad, I'm so happy."

The killings triggered days of anti-immigrant violence across the country after far-right activists seized on incorrect reports that the attacker was an asylum-seeker who had recently arrived in the UK. Some suggested the crime was a jihadi attack, and alleged that police and the government were withholding information.

Rudakubana was born in Cardiff, Wales, to Christian parents from Rwanda, and investigators have not been able to pin down his motivation. Police found documents about subjects including Nazi Germany, the Rwandan genocide and car bombs on his devices.

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In the years before the attack he had been reported to multiple authorities over his violent interests and actions.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told lawmakers on Tuesday that Rudakubana "was convicted of a violent assault against another child at school" and had multiple contacts with children's social care, mental health services and police, who were called to his home over his behaviour five times between 2019 and 2022.

He was referred three times to the government's anti-extremism program, Prevent, when he was 13 and 14.

All of the agencies failed to spot the danger he posed.

The government has declared the case a wake-up call. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said it must lead to "fundamental change" in the way the state protects its citizens, announcing a public inquiry into the failures that allowed Rudakubana to carry out his rampage with a knife he had ordered from Amazon.

He said laws might need updating to combat a "new threat" from violent individuals whose mix of motivations test the traditional definition of terrorism, "acts of extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their bedrooms".

The Crown Prosecution Service has defended the decision not to disclose details before Rudakubana went to court, saying "releasing that information earlier would have put the trial at risk."

UK contempt of court laws limit what can be reported before trial, in the interests of preventing jury bias.

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The family of a beloved Adelaide grandmother who was stabbed to death by her husband has been left unable to "forgive the evil act that took place".

Maria Dimasi, known affectionately as Nonna Maria, was found stabbed 76 times in December 2023.

Her husband, Francesco Dimasi, will never stand trial for murder because of his severe dementia, despite the judge agreeing he caused her death beyond a reasonable doubt.

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A judge ruled her 93-year-old husband was mentally competent when he stabbed his wife of 67 years to death inside their home at Findon in the city's western suburbs, and that the attack was not the result of dementia, which he was later diagnosed with.

"I guess that reinforced what we thought had happened," Maria's son Vince Dimasi told 9News.

He said the family "can't forgive the evil act that took place".

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Maria's daughter Carmel Ieraci said the family feels "some sort of peace in knowing that the truth has prevailed".

"Our lives will never be the same and neither will the state and all who knew Maria Dimasi," she said.

"She was incredible, absolutely incredible, she just had a heart of gold."

While the family did not want to speak specifically about their case, they said there needs to be more awareness around domestic violence because of the prevalence in which it's being perpetrated.

The case will return for one final hearing in April.

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

A brazen robbery that unfolded at an Adelaide banh mi shop, leaving staff shaken, has been captured on CCTV.

The incident occurred at around 6am when a masked bandit, dressed in fluorescent orange, stormed the Nhu Lan restaurant, brandishing what appeared to be a gun.

"I saw him. He got the gun. He tell me 'open the counter,'" employee Xuyen Le said.

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She stood her ground and told the robber to open the till himself.

CCTV footage shows him snatching the cash float and hidden notes from beneath the drawer before fleeing the scene. 

He was last seen disappearing southward along Hanson Road in Woodville Gardens.

The identity of the culprit remains unknown, and whether his weapon is real will form part of the police investigation. 

"The person may have been armed with a firearm," Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said. 

"And until we have information that discounts that, we treat it like the person may be carrying a firearm."

This article was produced with the assistance of 9ExPress.

Speakers from both sides spoke about the need for collaboration.

A south Sydney councillor is proposing a ban on all jet-skis after several "life-threatening" incidents at its most popular swimming spots.

Locals say the jet-ski hooning at Brighton Le Sands is so bad they've started to avoid the beach on the weekend.

"They come in really close, it's terrifying," local mum Laura Albulario said. 

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"My cousin had a run-in… she was swimming close to the shore with her young son and a guy nearly ran into her."

Bayside Council deputy mayor Heidi Lee Douglas said dangerous encounters like that are becoming all too frequent.

"The amount of dangerous activity has been increasing every summer at Botany Bay,"  Douglas said.

"I get sent footage from constituents of life-threatening incidents… we've seen kids as young as 10 illegally driving jet-skis in erratic ways."

"We don't want to wait for fatality for the state government to protect swimmers."

The deputy mayor is calling for action to make sections of Lady Robinsons Beach and parts of Brighton Le Sands Beach into no-go zones for jet-skis.

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But the boating industry said a ban on jet-skis would be unfair to those who do the right thing, and called on NSW Maritime to step up its response to people doing the wrong thing."

"We don't support that action of exclusion zones or bans," Neil Patchett from the Boating Industry Association said.

"We would be called on the maritime from transport and the water police to step up their compliance for those choosing to do the wrong thing."

Transport for NSW told 9News that there's already a jet-ski exclusion zone in place at Lady Robinson Beach.

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"Lady Robinson Beach and Botany Bay are heavily patrolled by TfNSW Maritime, the Marine Area Command and local police," a spokesperson said.

"Maritime has not been approached regarding extending or increasing these exclusion zones and currently has no plans to do so.

"Maritime works very closely with Bayside Council on education with personal watercraft operators to 'do the right thing.'"

The current jet-ski-free zone includes two netted-off swimming areas marked by yellow buoys.

NSW Maritime has already put jet-ski exclusion zones in place on the Central Coast, including a 300-metre no-go zone at Ettalong Beach.