Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 reactor almost melted down 40 years ago today

• Emily Previti/PA Post
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  Emily is a reporter for WITF who’s been covering voting and elections since July 2019 as part of her former role with statehouse accountability news organization PA Post. She was the senior reporter for statewide public media collaboration Keystone Crossroads. Previously, she covered city hall for PennLive/The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.), was a watchdog and city hall reporter at The Press of Atlantic City and reported for the Northwest Herald. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
  
  See other articles by Emily Previti for WITF.

 Joe Ulrich / WITF

Exelon says it will close Three Mile Island's Unit 1 reactor in September 2019. Unit 2 has been shuttered since a partial meltdown in 1979.

From The Context, PA Post’s weekday email newsletter:

The accident’s legacy

Joe Ulrich / WITF

Exelon has said it will close Three Mile Island’s Unit One reactor this fall.

• Opponents of nuclear energy say we’ll never really know the truth about Three Mile Island’s partial meltdown. Ivey DeJesus captured their stance on video in this PennLive post.

• Today, @witfnews will tweet as if the TMI accident is happening in real time, courtesy of digital manager Lisa Wardle. You can follow along to experience the changing status and confusion as the events unfolded.

• To listen to a re-telling of the event as it happened, check out this podcast from WITF’s Tim Lambert and PennLive’s John Luciew.

Best of the rest

Min Xian / WPSU

Several hundred people gathered at the Allen Street Gates in State College Thursday for a vigil for Osaze Osagie, who was fatally shot by police officers last week.

• State College is grappling with the borough’s first known fatal shooting by police. Officers shot and killed 29-year-old Osaze Osagie after he allegedly threatened them with a knife. Police were making a mental health check on Osagie. Anne Danahy has this update for WPSU.

• Pittsburgh City Council voted through a firearms ordinance. It needs another approval before becoming law — and if that happens, there could be wider implications. WESA’s Ariel Worthy explains.

• The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is in big financial trouble: Next year, the agency is expected to have accumulated more debt “than the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania – from all other sources,” according state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale. How does that even happen? Find out in this story by WITF’s Rachel McDevitt.