Wheel of Fortune Fires Jim Thornton

Hour 1 (9.04) Wheel of Fortune fired the announcer it's had since 2011. Six people in a small hatchback on Angeles Crest, four of them dead, and Marie's swell reaching the beaches tonight. 

6:05 — Sony Pictures Television terminated Wheel of Fortune announcer Jim Thornton, days after suspending him, following what the studio called a thorough investigation. It stems from a complaint another passenger made about what she saw on his laptop during a May 14 American Airlines flight from Charlotte to LAX. Officers met the plane. Thornton was questioned briefly, was not arrested, and has not been charged. His attorney says he did nothing wrong and that he was in a support forum connected to suicide-prevention work he took up after losing a family member. Cro brings up Pete Townshend, arrested in 2003 in Britain's Operation Ore, who said he'd accessed a site as research tied to his own childhood — police cautioned him and put him on the sex offenders register for five years anyway. And the obvious question: is Conway the guy to take over the announcing job? 

6:20 — The swell from Marie reaches Southern California late tonight. Six to ten feet on south-facing beaches, strong rip currents through the holiday weekend, and the worst of it at the south-facing spots. 

6:35 — Zoox started running its driverless robotaxis to and from Harry Reid International in Las Vegas this week, the first fully driverless service at a US airport, with pickups at both terminals closer to baggage claim than the Uber and Lyft zones. Drivers waiting in the lot had mixed feelings — one full-timer said it'll take a lot of business; another said there's nothing they can do about it. Which leads to the real question: what can you make out there? Six days, twelve hours a day, seventy-five hours a week, a hundred and fifty bucks in gas, and about fifteen hundred at the end of it. Plus, the customizable-speed idea. Zoox of Hazard. 

6:50 — Six people were in a black 2016 Hyundai Veloster heading east on the Angeles Crest Highway between Big Pines and Wrightwood around 1:34 this morning. The car drifted right, left the road, rolled down the embankment, and hit a power pole. Five of the six were thrown from the car. Four were pronounced dead at the scene. All six were from Wrightwood. CHP says nobody was belted in and that alcohol is likely a factor. 

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