Amber Heard - Jimmy Fallon Interview - June 22, 2015 (CNN) -
Johnny Depp"s pet dogs dodged the threat of being put down by Australian authorities earlier this year, but his wife, actress Amber Heard, is now facing criminal charges over the canine controversy.
The couple found themselves in hot water in May after officials accused them of bringing their two Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, into Australia on a private flight without the necessary permits, breaching the country"s strict biosecurity laws.
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce blasted the alleged act of doggie deception at the time, saying, "Mr. Depp needs to take his dogs back to California, or we"re going to have to euthanize them."
Depp, who was in Australia to film the latest "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie, acted quickly to get Pistol and Boo out of the country.
But that wasn"t enough to satisfy Australian authorities.
Maximum sentence of 10 years in prison
Prosecutors this week issued a summons for Heard, 29, to appear at a magistrates court in the state of Queensland on September 7.
She faces two charges of illegal import of animals and one charge of knowingly producing a false or misleading document, Australia"s Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions said in a statement Thursday.
The illegal import of animals carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of 102,000 Australian dollars ($75,000); the false document charge has a maximum penalty of a year in prison and a fine of 10,200 Australian dollars ($7,500).
Depp not charged
Depp, 52, has not been charged over the incident, the prosecutors said.
Heard starred with Depp in the 2011 movie "The Rum Diary." More recently, she appears in "Magic Mike XXL."
Since the dog fiasco in May, Depp appears to have worked on making a more positive impression in the Australian media, visiting a children"s hospital last week dressed in the costume of his "Pirates of the Caribbean" character, Capt. Jack Sparrow.
Four members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame walked onto the field of Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati arm-in-arm on Tuesday night, introduced as baseball"s greatest living players, and half of them hail from Alabama.
Hank Aaron, Johnny Bench, Sandy Koufax and Willie Mayswere revealed before the All-Star Game as the top four in an online poll that opened in April to select baseball"s greatest living players.
Barry Bonds, Rickey Henderson, Pedro Martinez and Tom Seaver also were on the ballot, and fans could cast write-in votes, too.
Aaron is a native of Mobile who spent 23 years in the big leagues, all but two seasons with the Braves in Milwaukee and Atlanta. Mays is a native of Fairfield who spent 22 years in the big leagues, all but two seasons with the Giants in New York and San Francisco.
Aaron was selected for 25 All-Star Games, more than any other player and one more than Mays. Mays was in the starting lineup for more All-Star Games than any other player with 18 -- one more than Aaron.
Aaron played in 3,298 games. In 12,364 at-bats, he had 3,771 hits for a .305 batting average. Aaron scored 2,174 runs and knocked in 2,297, which is the all-time record. He had 624 doubles, 98 triples, 755 home runs, 240 stolen bases, 1,402 walks and 1,383 strikeouts. Aaron"s on-base average was .374 and his slugging percentage was .555.
Mays played in 2,992 games. In 10,881 at-bats, he had 3,283 hits for a .302 batting average. Mays scored 2,062 runs and knocked in 1,903. He had 523 doubles, 140 triples, 660 home runs, 338 stolen bases, 1,464 walks and 1,526 strikeouts. Mays" on-base average was .384 and his slugging percentage was .557.
The catcher for the Big Red Machine, Bench was a 14-time All-Star for Cincinnati and won the National League MVP Award twice, including becoming the youngest winner of the award in 1970.
A Dodgers" left-hander, Koufax won the National League Cy Young Award three times, the World Series MVP Award twice and the NL MVP Award once in his final four seasons before arm issues ended his career at age 30.
Koufax threw out the ceremonial first pitch for the All-Star Game to Bench.
In an AL.com poll to pick baseball"s greatest living player, Mays finished in the top spot, followed by Aaron, Pete Rose and Cal Ripken Jr.
RELATED:AN MLB ALL-STAR TEAM WITH AN ALABAMA PLAYER AT EVERY POSITION
Venetia Phair was an English 11 in 1930 when she named Pluto. The 2008 documentary explores the planets naming and documents Phair as she sees Pluto for the first time through a telescope, 77 years after naming it. (Courtesy of Father Films)
The morning of March 14, 1930, was a fairly ordinary one in the Oxford home of 11-year-old Venetia Burney. The schoolgirl was eating breakfast in the dining room while her grandfather, Falconer Madan, paged throughthatdays edition of the Times of London.
But fate lay on page 14: astoryabout a newly discovered planet found at the far reaches of the solar system.
Madan read the story aloud to his precocious granddaughter, whohad studied the planets in school byarranginglumps of clay in the university park to model the distances between celestial objects. Young Venetia also had a penchant for classical mythology (all the major celestial objects in our solar system are named for Greek and Roman gods), so when Madan speculated about the new planets name, she had a suggestion up her sleeve.
We all wondered, she recalled in the documentary Naming Pluto. And then I said, Why not call it Pluto? And the whole thing stemmed from that.
Venetiasgrandfather, the retired head of the historic Bodleian Library at Oxford University, passed the idea along to an astronomer friend of his, who responded, I think PLUTO excellent!! according to the New York Times. (Theres nothing like a new planet to get dignified British professors to use excessive punctuation and all-caps.)
The astronomer telegraphed his colleagues at the Arizona observatory that discovered the new planet, and they voted unanimously in favor of the name. Pluto, the solar systems ninth planet, was born.
We all know what happened 75 years later: New astronomy discoveries and a debate about the true definition of a planet resulted in Pluto being stripped of its title.
Pluto may no longer be a planet. It may be small and obscure. Butit is the ultimate underdog, capable ofcaptivating us with its hapless charm despite distance and darkness and years of scientists slowly chipping away atits status. And its champions, like 11-year-old Venetia, come from the unlikeliest of places. They include a scientificoutcast and a penniless farm boy, along with the thousands of ordinary astronomy lovers who cheered when NASAsNew Horizons spacecraft whizzed pastTuesday morning,sending backthe best image yet of everyones favorite planet-that-isnt.
There it was, all rocky brown and beige. And in its lower hemisphere was an almost-perfect heart. How could ours not melt?
[After a wait, spacecraft confirms that it survived its close pass of Pluto]
It was a long way from the very first photograph of Pluto, taken by Percival Lowell almost exactly 100 years earlier. Lowell was a turn-of-the-century American astronomer infamous for speculating that aliens had built canals on Mars.
Somewhat outcastfrom the space community for his admittedly zany notion, Lowell dedicated the remainder of his life to yet another thankless task: the search for Planet X, anelusive rocky body at the very outer reaches of our solar system. Using a primitive camera and borrowed telescope, he spent more than a decade diligently photographing the night sky, hoping to findevidence of a planet whose existence had been theorized since the 1840s but never proved.
In the spring of 1915, Lowells camerafinally caught what it had been searching for: two faint images of a small sphereof space rock more than 3 billion miles from the Sun. But for reasons we many never know maybe Lowell never saw the images, maybe he did and didnt recognize their significance Lowell never realizedthat hed finally found the ninth planet.Lowell died a year later, and those first photographs faded into obscurity.
Lowellsdeath in 1916 left a gap in the ninth planetsearch effort, one that remained mostly empty until 1929, when a 23-year-old namedClyde Tombaugh arrived at the Flagstaff, Ariz.,observatory Lowell founded.
Annette and Alden Tombaugh, the children of Clyde Tombaugh, remember their father and his discovery of Pluto. (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory)
Tombaugh was the son of farmersfrom Kansas, and his dreams of going to college were dashed when a hailstorm destroyed his familys crops, according to a biographyon the Academy of Achievement Web site. Undaunted, he taught himself trigonometry and geometry and began building his own telescopes. The sketches of planets he drew with his homemade equipment were so impressive that, when he sent them to the observatoryin Flagstaff, astronomers there invited him to come work for them.
I was rather unnerved by it all, everybody were strangers, 1,000 miles from home, and not enough money in my wallet for a return ticket home,Tombaugh wrote of his first day there, according to the Kansas Historical Society.
Upon his arrivalTombaugh was put to work on Lowells old task searching for the elusive trans-Neptunian object. Though the technology was slightly better, the technique for seeking out a distant planet hadnt changed much.Tombaugh spent hours in an unheated dome, snapping photos of the sky, then examined the exposuresto determine whether any of the pinpricks of lightin them seemed to move over the course of days. Objects thatremained stationary were stars, the logic went. But if it moved it might be a planet.
After nearly a year of searching, he found it a tiny speck that crept across several of his photos. Thats it! he recalledexclaiming. Tombaugh and his colleagues spent more than a week studying the moving speck and confirming its validity, then announced their finding to the world on March 13, 1930. It would have beenLowells 75th birthday.
The discovery transformedTombaugh froman anonymous researcher into an international astronomy sensation. He was offered a scholarship to the University of Kansas, became a military researcher and astronomy professor, and is credited with discovering several new asteroids and hundreds of stars. An ounce of hisashes, saved after he died in 1997, wason board New Horizonswhen it launched in 2006.
[For children of Plutos discoverer, New Horizons is a personal triumph]
Thousands of miles across the Atlantic, the news of the discovery reached young Venetia Burney. She thought that Pluto, the Roman G*d of the underworld, was a fitting namesake for the darkest and most distant planet.The Lowell astronomers seemed to agree they voted unanimously in favor of the name, which had the added bonus of beginning with the same letters as Percival Lowells initials.
When the news went public, according to a 2006 interview with theBBC, Burneys grandfather rewarded her with a five-pound note.
In the interview, Burney is modest about her stroke of genius she came up with Pluto mostly because the other major names from classical mythology had already been taken, she said. But she is indignant on one point: She did not name the planet for Pluto the dog, a Disney character thatdebuted in the same year.
It has now been satisfactorily proven that the dog was named after the planet, rather than the other way round. So, one is vindicated, she said.
Burney, who became Venetia Phair after she was married, went on to become a schoolteacher and minor astronomy celebrity an asteroid has been named for her, as hasa dust-measuring instrumenton board New Horizons. She died in 2009, three years after the spacecraft launched and six years beforeit would reach the planet she named.
NASA"s New Horizons mission plans to collect more information on the planetary identity of Pluto. (NASA)
[Why the July 14 Pluto flyby will be a spectacular event for all of us]
Itsimprobable christening by a British schoolgirl was in some ways the highpoint for Pluto.After spending nearly a century trying to find the elusive planet, astronomers spent most of the next 85 years challenging its significance. Estimates of Plutos size wererepeatedly revised downward throughout the 20th century. The discovery of its largest moon, Charon, in the 1970s, allowed them to nail down the planets massatjust a tiny fraction of Earths.
In the 1990s, astronomers began identifying other large, rocky objects in Plutos general neighborhood, which we now know asthe Kuiper Belt. Scientists began debating whether Pluto ought to be reclassified from ninth planet to king of the Kuiper Belt in the words of Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, who in 2000 left Pluto out of the New York museumsplanetary display.
The death knell for Pluto as a planet came in 2005, when astronomers discovered the space object Eris even farther from the sun than Pluto and seemingly even larger. Appropriately named for the Greek goddess of chaos and strife, Eris sparked an uproaramong astronomers. Either scientists had found a 10thplanet, or they had to reconsider what the term planet really meant.
The International Astronomical Union went with the latter option, deciding in 2006 to classify both Pluto and Eris as dwarf planets. The rationale was that Pluto wasnt massive enough to clear the neighborhood around its orbit (meaning that there are no other objects of comparable sizein its orbit except those that are under its gravitational influence, such as satellites).
It was crushing news for the average Pluto enthusiast. But many of the people who study Pluto say that the affable, unflappable, not-quite-planet is no worse off for its redesignation.
Pluto is the granddaddy of the most populated region in the solar system, with the most to tell us about our history, Hal Levison, a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute who advocated for revising the planet classification criteria, told Slate last year. It must not mind.
The demotionmay even haveworked in its favor.
Its interesting, isnt it, that as they come to demote Pluto, so the interest in it seems to have grown?Venetia Burney commented tothe BBCin 2006.
Donald Trump: Scott Walker Has "a Lot of Problems"
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) said Tuesday that theBoy Scouts of America should keep itsblanket ban on openly gay leaders because the policy "protected children and advanced Scout values.
The Boy Scouts" executive committee votedunanimously on Friday to drop the ban and the issue now moves to a national executive board that will meetlater this month. The proposed change stops short of requiring thatall Scout groups allow gay leaders.
[Boy Scouts executive committee endorses ending ban on gay leaders]
Walker, who launched his presidential campaign on Monday, is anEagle Scout who has long beenactivewith the organization.His two sons, now in their 20s, were involved in scouting and his wife served as a den mother.
I have had a lifelong commitment to the Scouts and support the previous membership policy because it protected children and advanced Scout values," Walkertold the Independent Journal Review, a popular news site with a young conservative following that published his comments on Tuesday afternoon.
When asked about this comment following a campaign event at a Harley-Davidson dealership in Las Vegas on Tuesday afternoon, Walker said: "Im an Eagle Scout. My kids were in Scouts. My mom was a den mother. I think their previous policy was personally fine."
Walker"s comments quickly drew criticism from gay rights activists -- and again raised questions about how he would treat the gay community if elected president. The Human Rights Campaign, a leading LGBT rights organization, called for Walker torenounce his statement and apologize. The group also asked other presidential candidates to take a position on the issue.
[Five things you might not know about Scott Walker]
Scott Walker"s suggestion that the Boy Scouts of America"s current discriminatory policy somehow "protects" children from gay adults is offensive, outrageous, and absolutely unacceptable," said Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign in a statement. "His comments imply that we represent a threat to the safety and well-being of young people."
Walkerhas already faced criticism from some in his party for his staunch opposition togay marriage. Somewealthy donors in New York who worrythe Republicanhas gone too far to the right in his opposition, especially when Walker called the U.S. Supreme Court"s landmark decision allowing gay marriage in all 50 states a "grave mistake." The governor called for a constitutional amendment that would allow states to decide if they want to allow gay marriage or not.
Walker"s two college-aged sons, Matt and Alex Walker, have said they don"t agree with their father"s stance on gay marriage.One of their mother"s cousins, who is close to the family, hasbeen with her partner for 18 years. Thecouple, Shelli Marquardt and Cathy Priem, married last year. Alex Walker was the best man, and Walker has said he attended the reception.
"We love our family. We love our cousin. We stand by that," Alex Walker said in an interview with CNN that aired on Sunday.The two Walker sons said in that interview that they have debated gay marriage with their father but have not tried to change his position.
Katie Zezima contributed to this report from Las Vegas.
Jenna Johnson is a political reporter who is covering the 2016 presidential campaign.
What"s After Pluto? NASA"s New Horizons Will Find Out
Tuesday morning, the New Horizons space probe zipped past Pluto going 30,000 miles per hour. It carries the ashes of the man who discovered the dwarf planet, along with several spectrometers to analyze Pluto"s surface and one telescopic camera.
That camera has been busy for the past decade, snapping hundreds of photos of Jupiter first, and then Pluto. Those images were stitched together to create this video. The words that accompany the video come from Ray Bradbury, who read his poem "If Only We Had Taller Been" at a celebration of a NASA mission to Mars in 1971.
It"s easy to understand the success of the New Horizons mission by looking at two pictures. This used to be our best image of Pluto, captured by the Hubble Telescope.
Now we know that Pluto looks like this.
The last image of Pluto taken by New Horizons. NASA hide caption
itoggle caption NASA
The last image of Pluto taken by New Horizons.
NASA
Right now, New Horizons is taking even more detailed pictures of Pluto. If all goes according to plan, we"ll soon be able to examine details on its surface.
Watch this minutelong video for a quick overview of the New Horizons mission.
An Australian Federal Police (AFP) dinner in Sydney scheduled for the Muslim religious festival of Ramadan later this month has been cancelled due to community concerns.
Some community members have previously criticised the AFP and other agencies, saying they felt consultations in New South Wales regarding counter-terrorism measures had been tokenistic.
A petition, posted on Change.org by a group calling itself Concerned Muslims Australia and asking that people boycott planned end of Ramadan dinners in Sydney and Melbourne, saying the AFP had vilified the community, gathered more than 800 signatures.
The petition also accuses the Federal Government of a "prolonged campaign of anti-Muslim hysteria" over the past 12 months and says new counter-terrorism measures "target Muslims specifically".
In a written statement, the AFP said the decision not to host this year"s dinner showed the AFP and its partner agencies were consulting with and responding to the community. It said there would be other events in the future.
Sydney lawyer Lydia Shelley said while she did not sign the petition, she understood why the boycott happened.
"Largely the consultation that does take place is usually at the end of a baton, as opposed to any holistic programs or any holistic relationship and understanding," she said.
Dr Yasser Morsi from the University of South Australia said it was important there was a reboot in the relationship between the AFP and some parts of the Muslim community in NSW.
"The people behind [the petition], some of them are at the frontline of dealing with families whose homes have been raided, and they feel like that story hasn"t been told," he said.
"And I guess part of telling that story is to make sure there are people who are willing to listen.
"And when you"re not listened to, I think one way to deal with that is to say "let"s boycott in order for that relationship to be re-evaluated"."
A Ramadan dinner to be held in Melbourne later this month is scheduled to go ahead.
Phil Mickelson - Shot of the year!! Scottish Open 2013 WOW !!!!
Rickie Fowler claimed his second professional win outside the United States. Photo: Getty Images
American Rickie Fowler birdied the last hole thanks to a wonder approach shotto win a gripping Scottish Open by one shot from compatriot Matt Kuchar and Frenchman Raphael Jacquelin on Sunday.
The 26-year-old Fowler, who won this year"s USPGA Tour Players Championship, matched Kuchar"s closing 68 at Gullane to lift the trophy with a 12-under-par total and give himself the perfect tonic going into this week"s British Open at St Andrews.
British duo Eddie Pepperell and Marc Warren, who carded a fourth-round 64, and Dutchman Joost Luiten finished a shot further back in a tie for fourth place.
Former world number one Luke Donald fired a fine closing 66 to end on nine-under-par, a fourth successive round under 70 for the Briton who, like Fowler, will be bidding for his first major title at the home of golf.
Fowler paid tribute to his good friend Phil Mickelson after hebirdied three of his closing four holes to claimthe win.
He set up only his second victory outside the United States and his fourth as a professional with a wedge shot to two feet for birdie on the final hole.
Fowler was the second American in two years to capture the Scottish title after Mickelson won at Castle Stuart in 2013 before claiming a first Open Championship at Muirfield.
"I had breakfast with Phil this morning and he made sure I was well aware what he had done two years ago in winning the Scottish Open and then The Open, so I told him I would try and take care of the first leg of it, so I got that done," Fowler told reporters.
"Phil has always been a role model to me and a huge help, and someone I love spending time with on and off the golf course.
"I have learned a lot from Phil as he is a great professional."
Victory will take Fowler to a career-high world number five and renewed thoughts of challenging the game"s top-two ranked players in Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth.
"I am very excited to win the Scottish Open and hopefully it will move me forward and to having a great week at St Andrews, and you never know that down the road there could be some good tussles with me, Rory and Jordan."
Jacquelin, England"s Daniel Brooks and Sweden"s Rikard Karlberg earned places in the Open Championship by finishing in the leading three in the top-10 finishers not already qualified for The Open.
Brooks, who led on day two and three, carded a round of 73 to share seventh place on nine under par and set up his first Open appearance.
"Overall it"s been a great week as I"ve played some lovely golf," Brooks said.
"But then I have scrambled like you would not believe over the last two days, and to get a final spot for The Open, I"m over the moon."
Karlberg, who shared 10th place at eight under par, secured his spot in a first Open and Scotland"s Richie Ramsay also qualified for the third major of the year following the withdrawal of South African Tim Clark due to visa issues.
