Debris from an uncontrolled Chinese rocket could crash into Australia overnight as the space-craft re-enters Earth's atmosphere.

The Aerospace Corporation's Centre For Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies (CORDS) estimates the rocket will drop out of orbit sometime overnight or tomorrow, as does European Union Space Surveillance and Tracking.

The Long March 5B rocket is about the size of a ten-storey building and weighs about 22.5 tons, the Aerospace Corporation said.

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https://twitter.com/AerospaceCorp/status/1588297630487977985

It was launched on October 31 last year, carrying Chinese space station Mengtian.

"The uncertainty of where the large debris will ultimately land presents a level of risk to human safety and property damage that is well above commonly accepted thresholds," the corporation said in a statement.

"Over 88 per cent of the world's population lives under the reentry's potential debris footprint."

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Australia is among those countries that could potentially be hit.

The corporation – which is a US-funded not-for-profit research centre based in California – said the rocket was too large to burn up in the atmosphere.

Combined with its uncontrolled re-entry, it presented enough risk that "precautionary preparation" around the world was justified.

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China has been criticised before over the uncontrolled re-entry of its rockets, but has rejected the claims of danger as baseless.

Last year, a 21-tonne Chinese rocket landed in the Indian Ocean after an uncontrolled re-entry

A study published in Nature Astronomy earlier this year analysed 30 years of data to reveal that there is a roughly one in 10 chance that at least one person will be killed by falling rocket debris in the next decade.

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The foster mother of missing boy William Tyrrell did not lie to the NSW Crime Commission about hitting a different child with a wooden spoon, a magistrate has found.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared in Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on Friday charged with knowingly giving false or misleading evidence to the commission.

The charge was unrelated to William, who was aged three when he went missing from a home at Kendall on the NSW Mid North Coast in 2014.

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The woman was accused of lying to the commission about whether she had ever struck another child with a wooden spoon.

Magistrate Miranda Moody said she could not "discount the possibility she was mistaken and did not deliberately lie" to the commission, because she made such prompt admissions of hitting and kicking the child in other instances during the hearing.

The woman responded "yes" to questions put to her during the hearing including "did you ever hit (the child)?" and "did you ever kick (the child)?".

"Have you ever hit her with a wooden spoon?" Detective Sergeant Andrew Lonergan asked her.

"Never," she responded.

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The magistrate said she "might have taken a different view had she denied ever hitting or kicking (the child)".

Audio recording from listening devices placed in the home recorded what police allege is the woman hitting a child with a wooden spoon.

The child can be heard threatening to call the police beforehand.

A woman is then heard telling the child to "stand up" three times.

"Where'd you put the wooden spoon?" the court heard a woman on the recording say.

The child then pleads, screams and cries, and is told to turn around and move her hands before smacking sounds are heard.

"She's still going on about it," the woman is heard telling her husband in a later phone call intercepted by police.

Earlier in the court hearing, Lonergan said he believed the foster mother knew where William Tyrrell is.

Her barrister, John Stratton said that was a false belief.

Police charged her for allegedly lying, in an attempt to pressure her, he said.

"You are hoping to break her spirit," Stratton suggested.

"Our main objective is to find out where William Tyrrell is," Lonergan said.

The woman was emotional and teary when the magistrate delivered the decision.

She is due back in court next year charged with common assault.

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One man is counting his luck this week after a freak accident in an Adelaide beachside suburb where two truck tyres came loose and hit his car head-on.

It was 8.30pm on Tuesday night and Blake Jackson had been out with some mates.

He was heading to his newly opened pizza shop to help clean up for the night when two large truck tyres appeared in the headlights of his car, still attached to the hub and rolling freely on the road right in front of him.

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There were only split seconds in it and when he saw it, Jackson thought, "That's gonna suck for wherever that lands".

"And then I'm like, oh, it's actually right in front of me now and nowhere to go," he told 9News.

"Nothing. Nothing I could do and just smash, bang into it.

"So I braced, not really knowing how big of an impact it was gonna be or whether it was just gonna bounce off and I'd keep going.

"I just held on and hoped for the best."

With little time to react, Jackson's car took the impact head-on, causing the airbags to deploy and a large amount of damage to the car.

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Moments later, Jackson said, his Apple Watch was vibrating and told him "you've been in a high-impact crash".

He said the watch asked him on-screen to confirm, which he did and from there "it automatically dialled triple-zero and notified all my emergency contacts in my phone".

Launched just last month, Apple's new Crash Detection feature is available on its latest iPhone 14 models and on the Apple Watch Series 8, Ultra and SE.

It works by using sensors to determine if the device has been involved in an accident, with Apple testing a range of crash scenarios including rear, side and front impacts and roll-over events.

In Jackson's case, he owns an iPhone 14 Pro – one of the new devices with Crash Detection – and while the phone detected the crash, his older Apple Watch Series 6 notified him on his wrist because he got out of the car without his phone, which was in a mount that had been ripped from the dashboard, resulting in the phone screen cracking and it laying somewhere in the car.

The iPhone's Health app allows owners to add emergency contacts, including phone numbers of family or friends, who will be alerted in these situations.

Jackson's mate Ash received this message on the night of the crash:

Jackson's sister Jacinta received the same message and lived just minutes away.

She arrived on the scene without him needing to talk to her about the crash location.

Jackson also had a dashcam in his car which was recording the whole thing and was able to verify his account of the accident to police at the scene.

Having experienced the intervention of technology in a potentially life-threatening situation, Jackson believes everyone should ensure they have emergency contacts listed in their phones.

"There's the Health ID, which has all your blood type and stuff in there, plus your friends and family contact details," he said.

"It's just impressed me so much that it's phenomenal.

"I've just got an Apple Watch, and it connected me straight away.

"I probably hadn't gathered my thoughts enough to think about ringing triple-zero so it did the work for me."

While his 2009 Subaru looks beyond repair, Jackson counts his blessings and has one heck of a story to tell those who come along to Beach Road Pizza.

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Every week we will break down, debunk and demystify your rights as a shopper in Australia. This week we are looking at whether old adage that "the customer is always right", and whether that's true in Australia.

We all know life is getting more expensive than ever before, and how important it is to stretch every dollar you make.

That's why each week we'll answer a question surrounding what shoppers are – and aren't – entitled to when dealing with retailers and manufacturers.

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Is the customer really king?

Hi Stu,

I was at a barbecue recently where we were all discussing shops honouring prices they had accidentally set on some goods.

A friend there said that it doesn't matter whether it was an honest mistake, because in Australia "the customer is always right".

Is that true? 

Is there some kind of law saying that shops have no way of disputing customer claims?

Hi there,

To answer your question: fundamentally, no, the customer is not always right in Australia.

But every customer always has their rights under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL).

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I think where people are getting confused is that they are conflating a more general customer service ethos with some kind of actual law.

The saying "the customer is always right" likely originated in the United States in the early 20th century when bigger department stores were beginning to take hold in the country.

At its core, it's just a saying that businesses adopt to put their workers in the mindset that the people spending money in their store are important and should be looked after.

(Prior to this, many retailers had the attitude that shoppers should be grateful for what they were being offered!)

In modern times, businesses tend to loosely adopt this same ethos because stories about bad customer service can spread like wildfire.

MONEY MATTERS: Can a business refuse legal tender in Australia?

Under the ACL, you are given basic rights as a shopper known as consumer guarantees. 

Businesses can't refuse these from you and cannot mislead you about the rights you are awarded under law.

The ACCC has some excellent resources you can read to know your consumer guarantees inside and out.

Many of us are aware that some big retailers will honour or resolve customer claims to avoid even bigger problems. 

But please be respectful to retail staff – it's a demanding job that is thoroughly underappreciated.

Do you have a consumer conundrum you need clearing up? Email Stu at sm****@******om.au.

The information provided on this website is general in nature only and does not constitute personal financial or legal advice. The information has been prepared without taking into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on any information on this website you should consider the appropriateness of the information having regard to your objectives, financial situation and needs.

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Family members of a 22-year-old woman whose boyfriend admitted to killing her last year have filed a wrongful death suit against the Moab Police Department, claiming their negligence led to her death weeks later.

The lawsuit filed on Thursday is the latest development in the high-profile case around Gabby Petito's death.

What began as a missing person's case last summer rode a wave of true crime obsession to become a social media sensation, drawing amateur online sleuthers and the kind of worldwide attention that can help authorities locate missing people.

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Petito and her boyfriend, 23-year-old Brian Laundrie, were stopped by police officers in Moab, Utah last summer but were ultimately not cited for domestic violence amid signs of distress and their own statements about physical conflict.

Petito's body was later found on the edge of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming after being strangled.

Laundrie was the only person ever identified by law enforcement as a person of interest and was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after returning alone to his parents’ home in Florida.

The contrast between the cheerful facade on display on Petito's widely followed Instagram account — where she chronicled her cross-country trip in a van to tens of thousands of followers — and the darker reality of domestic violence she was experiencing in the lead-up to her death captivated millions and sparked unprecedented national conversation about dating violence.

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It also brought criticism of authorities and the news media for focusing more attention on missing white women like Petito than on missing and murdered indigenous women and women of colour more broadly.

Petito's mother, father and other family members have sought to keep her name in the news, hoping to honour her legacy and help make sure signs of abuse are recognised by authorities in a position to intervene, they said Thursday.

“There are laws put in place to protect victims. And those laws were not followed. And we don’t want this to happen to anybody else,” said Nicole Schmidt, Petito's mother, her voice quivering.

Schmidt, other family members and their team of lawyers stood in front of an old picture of Petito smiling in a slot canyon at a Thursday press conference in Salt Lake City.

The wrongful death lawsuit seeks $80 million in damages from the police department in Moab, a rural Utah city known for being an entryway to national parks full of red rock canyons and mesas.

It lays blame for Petito's death on the city's police officers, who did not issue a domestic violence citation after a bystander called to report conflict between Petito and Laundrie. In doing so, the lawsuit claims officers disregarded signs of violence they should have been trained to notice.

The suit also claims police officers "coached Gabby to provide answers that the officers used to justify their decision not to enforce Utah law," which requires action be taken in response to domestic violence incidents.

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Moab Police Officer Eric Pratt “was fundamentally biased in his approach to the investigation, choosing to believe Gabby’s abuser, ignoring evidence that Gabby was the victim and intentionally looking for loopholes to get around the requirements of Utah law and his duty to protect Gabby.”

The complaint bases that bias claim off of an unnamed woman referred to as “Witness 1," who alleges Pratt threatened to kill her after their relationship ended while he was serving as police chief in Salina, Utah, another rural town.

After the lawsuit was filed, the city of Moab said the death was tragic yet not the fault of their police department.

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Pratt did not respond to a phone call requesting comment and the city of Moab said no employee of the city or police department would be commenting further at this time.

“Our officers acted with kindness, respect, and empathy toward Ms. Petito,” city spokesperson Lisa Adams said in a statement.

“No one could have predicted the tragedy that would occur weeks later and hundreds of miles away, and the City of Moab will ardently defend against this lawsuit.”

The lawsuit follows a notice of claim filed in August, notifying Moab that Petito's family intended to file for damages due to wrongful death.

An independent investigation in January faulted police for making “several unintentional mistakes” including not issuing a domestic violence citation after Petito told police she had hit her boyfriend.