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Southern resident killer whales are a critically endangered population protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Their current population is about 73. The animals are social and live in close-knit family groups led by mothers and grandmothers.

The whales are given tracking numbers by the Center for Whale Research and are closely observed by researchers, photographers and whale watchers — particularly when they’re near communities along Puget Sound, like Seattle.

“I would venture to say it’s the most well-studied population of whales on the planet regardless of species, because it’s been going on for 50 years,” Giles said.

How, then, did this stunning behavior escape researchers’ notice for decades?

They didn’t have the right perspective.

“It’s a really cryptic behavior. It’s happening almost entirely underwater and it’s a piece of kelp wedged between two animals that’s only about 2 feet long,” Weiss said.

More recently, researchers have started using drones to document the whales from an aerial perspective. As drone technology has improved, so has the data they’ve collected.

“What’s really changed for us in the 2024 field season — we got a new drone,” Weiss said, noting that it provided higher-resolution video.

He said the researchers first noticed a whale pushing kelp against another whale in April and then observed whales rubbing against each other for about 15 minutes.

Once the researchers noticed the strange behavior, they began to see it more often.

“We started seeing it a lot — to the point now where most days we fly the drone, we do see at least one pair of whales doing this behavior,” Weiss said.

The researchers suspect the behavior has been happening all along.

“We didn’t have the right vantage. I do believe this is something that’s probably been happening since time immemorial,” Giles said. “I think we’ve just scratched the surface of understanding these animals, partly because of technology.”

The southern residents have been in the spotlight of conservation efforts for decades. The whales are facing a number of threats, including declining quantity and quality of prey, toxic pollution and disturbance from vessel noise, according to the Marine Mammal Commission. Some research suggests the southern residents are on a path toward extinction, if more aggressive measures aren’t taken.

Weiss said the new findings offer yet another reason why it’s important to take care of the species.

“Discovering something like this, late in the game for how long we’ve studied them, says there’s a lot more to learn and they need to be around to learn those things,” he said. “This is not just a collection of 73 whales … It’s a unique culture and also a society. These are whales with a set of traditions that go back thousands of years.”

Tens of millions of people across the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic are under heat alerts Monday as a dangerous heat wave that began over the weekend continues to move through the region.

The rare June heat wave broke about 20 records on Sunday and is expected to break more on Monday. According to The Weather Channel, the city of Mitchell, South Dakota, broke its daily high on Saturday when temperatures climbed to 104 degrees, smashing its previous record of 101 degrees.

Records were also set on Saturday across Wyoming and Minnesota, according to The Weather Channel.

Across the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and up to Maine, 148 million people were under heat alerts on Monday. Extreme heat warnings have been issued for 75 million people in nearly a dozen major cities, including Chicago, Boston, New York City, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.

Chicago up to Boston could be experiencing heat index values between 100 and 110 degrees.

“Hot temperatures, oppressive humidity and very light winds are expected today, leading to dangerous levels of heat,” the National Weather Service in Boston said in a post on X. Tuesday will be “the hottest day of the stretch,” the agency said.

“Air temperatures in many areas could pass the century mark, and it may feel like the low 110s in some areas,” the agency said. “This is a dangerous level of heat, with no significant relief at night!”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams urged residents to take precautions.

“Our first heat wave of the summer is here, and it’s so important that New Yorkers across the five boroughs take care of themselves over the next few days,” he said in a post on X. “That’s right. SEVERAL DAYS of EXTREME heat.”

Relief from the sweltering temperatures will come on Wednesday in the Midwest and Thursday in the Northeast when the heat dome starts to weaken.

In other parts of the country, severe storms will be impacting regions from northern Kansas to Michigan on Monday, bringing damaging winds, large hail and possible tornadoes. From west Texas to southern Wisconsin, the storms will bring a risk of flash floods.

U.S. benchmark oil prices were only marginally higher Monday morning, an outcome that reflects investors shifting into wait-and-see mode as they take stock of Iran’s response to U.S. strikes on its nuclear facilities.

The 0.2% gain in West Texas Intermediate crude futures, to less than $74 a barrel, reflected a significant overnight pullback from the nearly 4% spike seen Sunday evening when trading of commodities futures opened.

Stocks opened flat.

The current oil price is still the highest since late January — but is only slightly below the overall average seen since 2023. It would equate to gasoline prices of about $3.30 a gallon, assuming oil prices stay at these levels.

That would be a big assumption.

Wall Street analysts say that by ordering the strikes, President Donald Trump has once again injected massive uncertainty into markets after having already done so with his on-again, off-again tariff announcements.

“There is in our view a wide range of outcomes for oil prices in the next few weeks,” analysts with UBS financial group wrote in a note to clients. “The nature and extent of Iranian retaliation remains the key parameter.”

If the Iranian response somehow stays muted, oil prices could actually fall back down, the analysts said.

But the U.S. strikes have likely increased the risk to disruptions of energy infrastructure in the Middle East, they wrote. If any such disruption were to occur, oil prices would surge in the short term.

“EVERYONE, KEEP OIL PRICES DOWN. I’M WATCHING! YOU’RE PLAYING RIGHT INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY. DON’T DO IT!” Trump posted to social media Monday morning.

The biggest focus remains on whether Iran will limit or cut-off access to the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint in the Persian Gulf through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply travels. Iran’s state-owned media reported that Iran’s parliament backed closing the strait — but that the final decision lies with Iran’s national security council, according to the report. There was no word yet that such an order had been given.

UBS said it sees a disruption of the strait as “low probability” at this point. An early-morning report that six tankers had begun moving away from the strait was updated just before 9 a.m. to show that three of the vessels had reversed course and were heading back to the strait.

“The strait is critical for Iran’s own exports as its terminal outside of the Strait only has limited capacity,” the analysts said. “A closure would also have a material negative impact for several other countries such as Qatar and China and would likely present a challenge for Iran.”

Analysts with ING financial group outlined four possible avenues for Iran: full escalation that also draws in other nations such as China or Russia; disruption of the Strait of Hormuz; active or passive support for terrorist attacks in the U.S. and Europe; or taking no action at all.

“We will abstain from speculating about the next steps and instead conclude that the most likely economic consequences from the US strikes will be on general uncertainty and on the price of oil,” the ING analysts wrote.

BATON ROUGE, La. — Marine Corps veteran Adrian Clouatre doesn’t know how to tell his children where their mother went after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained her last month.

When his nearly 2-year-old son Noah asks for his mother before bed, Clouatre just tells him, “Mama will be back soon.” When his 3-month-old, breastfeeding daughter Lyn is hungry, he gives her a bottle of baby formula instead. He’s worried how his newborn will bond with her mother absent skin-to-skin contact.

His wife, Paola, is one of tens of thousands of people in custody and facing deportation as the Trump administration pushes for immigration officers to arrest 3,000 people a day.

Even as Marine Corps recruiters promote enlistment as protection for families lacking legal status, directives for strict immigrant enforcement have cast away practices of deference previously afforded to military families, immigration law experts say. The federal agency tasked with helping military family members gain legal status now refers them for deportation, government memos show.

To visit his wife, Adrian Clouatre has to make an eight-hour round trip from their home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to a rural ICE detention center in Monroe. Clouatre, who qualifies as a service-disabled veteran, goes every chance he can get.

Paola Clouatre, a 25-year-old Mexican national whose mother brought her into the country seeking asylum more than a decade ago, met Adrian Clouatre, 26, at a southern California nightclub during the final months of his five years of military service in 2022. Within a year, they had tattooed each other’s names on their arms.

After they married in 2024, Paola Clouatre sought a green card to legally live and work in the U.S. Adrian Clouatre said he is “not a very political person” but believes his wife deserved to live legally in the U.S.

“I’m all for ‘get the criminals out of the country,’ right?” he said. “But the people that are here working hard, especially the ones married to Americans — I mean, that’s always been a way to secure a green card.”

Detained at a green card meeting

The process to apply for Paola Clouatre’s green card went smoothly at first, but eventually she learned ICE had issued an order for her deportation in 2018 after her mother failed to appear at an immigration hearing.

Clouatre and her mother had been estranged for years — Clouatre cycled out of homeless shelters as a teenager — and up until a couple of months ago, Clouatre had “no idea” about her mother’s missed hearing or the deportation order, her husband said.

Adrian Clouatre recalled that a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services staffer asked about the deportation order during a May 27 appointment as part of her green card application. After Paola Clouatre explained that she was trying to reopen her case, the staffer asked her and her husband to wait in the lobby for paperwork regarding a follow-up appointment, which her husband said he believed was a “ploy.”

Soon, officers arrived and handcuffed Paola Clouatre, who handed her wedding ring to her husband for safekeeping.

Adrian Clouatre, eyes welling with tears, said he and his wife had tried to “do the right thing” and that he felt ICE officers should have more discretion over arrests, though he understood they were trying to do their jobs.

“It’s just a hell of a way to treat a veteran,” said Carey Holliday, a former immigration judge who is now representing the couple. “You take their wives and send them back to Mexico?”

The Clouatres filed a motion for a California-based immigration judge to reopen the case on Paola’s deportation order and are waiting to hear back, Holliday said.

Less discretion for military families

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement that Paola Clouatre “is in the country illegally” and that the administration is “not going to ignore the rule of law.”

“Ignoring an Immigration Judge’s order to leave the U.S. is a bad idea,” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a June 9 post on X which appeared to refer to Clouatre’s case. The agency added that the government “has a long memory and no tolerance for defiance when it comes to making America safe again.”

Adrian Clouatre said the agency’s X post does not accurately reflect his wife’s situation because she entered the country as a minor with her mother, seeking asylum.

“She was not aware of the removal order, so she was not knowingly defying it,” he said. “If she had been arrested, she would have been deported long ago, and we would never have met.”

Prior to the Trump administration’s push to drive up deportations, USCIS provided much more discretion for veterans seeking legal status for a family member, said Holliday and Margaret Stock, a military immigration law expert.

In a Feb. 28 memo, the agency said it “will no longer exempt” from deportation people in groups that had received more grace in the past. This includes the families of military personnel or veterans, Stock said. As of June 12, the agency said it has referred upward of 26,000 cases to ICE for deportation.

USCIS still offers a program allowing family members of military personnel who illegally entered the U.S. to remain in the country as they apply for a green card. But there no longer appears to be room for leeway, such as giving a veteran’s spouse like Paola Clouatre the opportunity to halt her active deportation order without facing arrest, Stock said.

But numerous Marine Corps recruiters have continued to post ads on social media, geared toward Latinos, promoting enlistment as a way to gain “protection from deportation” for family members.

“I think it’s bad for them to be advertising that people are going to get immigration benefits when it appears that the administration is no longer offering these immigration benefits,” Stock said. “It sends the wrong message to the recruits.”

Marine Corps spokesperson Master Sgt. Tyler Hlavac told The Associated Press that recruiters have now been informed they are “not the proper authority” to “imply that the Marine Corps can secure immigration relief for applicants or their families.”

Iran may be threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, but experts told CNBC that it’s also the one with the most to lose.

In a major move after U.S. struck Iranian nuclear sites, the country’s parliament on Sunday reportedly approved the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, risking alienating its neighbors and trade partners.

The decision to close the waterway now rests with the the country’s national security council, and its possibility has raised the specter of higher energy prices and aggravated geopolitical tensions, with Washington calling upon Beijing to prevent the strait’s closure.

Vandana Hari, founder of energy intelligence firm Vanda Insights, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” that the possibility of closure remains “absolutely minimalistic.”

If Iran blocks the strait, the country risks turning its neighboring oil-producing countries into enemies and risks hostilities with them, she said.

Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration revealed that Iran had shipped 1.5 million barrels per day via the Strait of Hormuz in the first quarter of 2025.

Furthermore, a closure would also provoke Iran’s market in Asia, particularly China, which accounts for a majority of Iranian oil exports.

“So very, very little to be achieved, and a lot of self-inflicted harm that Iran could do,” Hari said.

Her view is supported by Andrew Bishop, senior partner and global head of policy research at advisory firm Signum Global Advisors.

Iran will not want to antagonize China, he said, adding that disrupting supplies will also “put a target” on the country’s own oil production, export infrastructure, and regime “at a time when there is little reason to doubt U.S. and Israeli resolve in being ‘trigger-happy.’”

Clayton Seigle, senior fellow for Energy Security and Climate Change at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that as China is “very dependent” on oil flows from the Gulf, not just Iran, “its national security interest really would value stabilization of the situation and a de-escalation enabling safe flows of oil and gas through the strait.”

There are currently no indications of threats to commercial shipping passing through the waterway, according to the Joint Maritime Information Center. “U.S. associated vessels have successfully transited the Strait of Hormuz without interruption, which is a positive sign for the immediate future.”

Impact of potential disruptions

The Strait of Hormuz is the only sea route from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, and about 20% of the world’s oil transits the waterway. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has described it as the “world’s most important oil transit chokepoint.”

“Iran’s operations in and around Hormuz are unlikely to be ‘all or nothing’ — but instead move along a sliding scale from total disruption to none at all,” said Signum’s Bishop.

“The best strategy [for Iran] would be to rattle Hormuz oil flows just enough to hurt the U.S. via moderate upward price movement, but not enough to provoke a major U.S. response against Iran’s oil production and export capacity,” he added.

On Sunday, Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said in a post on X that pump prices in the U.S. could climb to $3.35-$3.50 per gallon in the days ahead, compared with the national average of $3.139 for the week of June 16.

Should Iran decide to close the strait, it would most likely use small boats for a partial blockade, or for a more complete solution, mine the waterway, according to David Roche, strategist at Quantum Strategy.

In a Sunday note, S&P Global Commodity Insights wrote that any Iranian closure of the strait would affect not only Iran’s own exports, but also those of nearby Gulf nations such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar.

That would potentially remove over 17 billion barrels of oil from global markets, and affect regional refineries by causing feedstock shortages, the research firm said. The disruption to supply would impact Asia and Europe as well as North America.

Besides oil, natural gas flows could also be “severely impacted,” S&P said, with Qatar’s gas exports of about 77 million metric tons per year potentially unable to reach key markets in Asia and Europe.

Qatar’s LNG exports represent about 20% of global LNG supply.

“Alternative supply routes for Middle Eastern oil and gas are limited, with pipeline capacity insufficient to offset potential maritime disruptions through the Persian Gulf and Red Sea,” S&P added.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia pointed out that “there is limited scope to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.” Pipelines in Saudi Arabia and the UAE have only a spare capacity of 2.6 million barrels a day between them, while the strait oversees the transport of an estimated 20 million barrels of oil and oil products per day, the bank said in a note.

All these present upside risk to energy prices, with Goldman Sachs estimating that the market is pricing in a geopolitical risk premium of $12.

If oil flows through the strait were to drop by 50% for one month and then were to remain down by 10% for another 11 months, Brent is forecast to “briefly jump” to a peak of around $110, Goldman said.

Brent oil futures currently stand at $78.95 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate futures were trading at $75.75.

One of the largest crisis pregnancy center support groups in the United States is telling its member clinics to avoid performing prenatal ultrasounds on women who they suspect have ectopic pregnancies, according to recordings obtained by NBC News of a recent presentation by a legal group that advises the faith-based nonprofits. The guidance comes in the wake of a lawsuit against a Massachusetts center that misdiagnosed an ectopic pregnancy.

The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA), a group that provides legal support and medical training for crisis pregnancy centers, advised members at a meeting earlier this year to proceed with caution when giving an ultrasound to a woman they suspect may have an ectopic pregnancy, calling the condition “the greatest medical and legal risk for clinics,” according to the recordings of the presentation that NBC News obtained via a conference attendee.

“I do not want to see on any website or advertising is, ‘Come to us and we’ll rule out an ectopic,” said a representative for NIFLA. “It is impossible to rule out an ectopic unless you’re doing HCG,” they added, referring to a blood test that measures hormone levels to confirm a pregnancy.

In the Massachusetts lawsuit filed in 2023, a crisis pregnancy center was accused of failing to diagnose an ectopic pregnancy and causing a life-threatening emergency for a client. The complaint alleged that Clearway Clinic engaged in deceptive advertising, aiming to persuade women to forgo abortions rather than “providing them with the range of medically appropriate options.”

The plaintiff, a Worcester resident who was kept anonymous in the suit, alleged that the nurse who performed her ultrasound scan at the center “did not undertake sufficient medical measures” to ensure the pregnancy was viable. The suit alleges that the woman’s fallopian tube ruptured about a month after the ultrasound scan, “causing massive internal bleeding and necessitating emergency surgery.”

After a favorable lower court ruling for the plaintiff, the crisis pregnancy center settled the case in June 2024 without admitting liability.

Crisis pregnancy centers operate across the United States with the goal of persuading pregnant women to continue their pregnancies. Many open close to abortion clinics, promoting family planning services and limited health care services such as pregnancy tests and ultrasounds. Many generally don’t offer regular prenatal checkups or gynecological services, nor do they offer abortion procedures, abortion medications or care for women having miscarriages.

According to Andrea Swartzendruber, a reproductive health epidemiologist at the University of Georgia College of Public Health who studies crisis pregnancy centers, many centers have advertised free ultrasounds as a way to diagnose an ectopic pregnancy and bring women through their doors.

“They talk about ectopic pregnancies in their advertising and on their websites a lot,” said Swartzendruber. “They use it to engage and try to motivate people to come in for an ultrasound.”

An ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilized egg implants and grows outside the uterus. While the condition is rare, affecting only 1% to 2% of pregnancies, it can be life-threatening. Early in a pregnancy, symptoms can include vaginal bleeding or mild pain or cramping, but women may not realize they’re experiencing an ectopic pregnancy at that stage. The condition is diagnosed by either an ultrasound, a pelvic exam or a blood test.

Some of the cases NIFLA has represented clinics in have made their way to the Supreme Court, including a 2018 case that handed a major First Amendment win to crisis pregnancy centers in California. While NIFLA did not represent Clearway Clinic in the Massachusetts case, the center was listed as a member in 2023.

“Just as I’m walking down here I had a call from a center,” said one of the lawyers on the recording, recounting a story of a clinic that suspected a client had an ectopic pregnancy. “They had a woman come in who was cramping, and she said on a scale of 1 to 10, it was just below a 6. And I’m like, yikes, like, I wouldn’t scan her.”

The lawyer acknowledged the correct move would be to send the client to the emergency room.

NIFLA has issued similar guidance to its member centers in the past. A 2018 document titled “Medical Policies and Procedures” advises centers that “if a patient has symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage, she will not be offered an ultrasound exam and is advised, verbally and in writing, to immediately obtain medical care.”

According to Swartzendruber, that guidance is not always heeded by the industry.

“That seems like a very marked change, especially given that so many CPCs are using fear around ectopic pregnancy as a reason to come in and get scanned,” she said.

NIFLA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

NIFLA training materials presented at the meeting and obtained by NBC News say these health services create “access points” to “help prevent unintended pregnancies and intervene in the lives of individuals who are most abortion vulnerable.”

According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, crisis pregnancy centers “represent themselves as legitimate reproductive health care clinics providing care for pregnant people but actually aim to dissuade people from accessing certain types of reproductive health care, including abortion care and even contraceptive options.”

“Because the religious ideology of these centers’ owners and employees takes priority over the health and well-being of the women seeking care at these centers, women do not receive comprehensive, accurate, evidence-based clinical information about all available options,” says a paper published in the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics.

During the NIFLA panel, lawyers and a participating doctor advised centers against scanning women they suspect to have ectopic pregnancies at all.

After being asked by an audience member about whether to scan a woman with low HCG levels, the hormone produced by the placenta during pregnancy, a doctor urged that audience member to turn the woman away and be seen by her medical provider.

Human chorionic gonadotropin, or HCG, is colloquially known as the pregnancy hormone. According to the Cleveland Clinic, HCG levels rise after conception and continue to rise until about 10 weeks into pregnancy. Low or declining HCG levels can indicate a miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy.

“I’m not scanning. If you’ve got a level that’s low like that, it could be early pregnancy, but that is one of the cardinal signs of ectopic and one of the cardinal signs of miscarriage, slowly rising HCG. Please do not,” said the doctor. “She’s already got a provider. Dump it back on them.”

“She should be going back to her provider,” added a legal representative.

Another slide deck from the summit, titled “Bonding: The Impact of Prenatal Ultrasound,” advised attendees on “words to avoid for legal risk reduction” during an ultrasound. The words listed are “good,” “fine,” “OK,” “normal” and “perfect.”

Concerns about federal privacy laws

During the panel, a lawyer addressed another controversy facing the centers: federal health privacy laws. While some crisis pregnancy centers do offer limited prenatal care or gynecological services, they’re usually staffed by volunteers and aren’t bound by federal health privacy laws. Yet many of them state in their privacy policies that they comply with the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA. NBC News previously reported on letters to state attorneys general about potential privacy issues around centers advertising their services as “HIPAA compliant.”

At the NIFLA meeting, representatives acknowledged the privacy concerns.

“There’s this movement not to say HIPAA, and I just finally got everybody to spell it right. So I’m kind of upset,” said one of the lawyers on the panel. “We want you to abide by those policies, but don’t advertise yourself as HIPAA-compliant.”

Debra Rosen, the executive director of advocacy group Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch, said this approach can be deceptive.

“Unregulated pregnancy clinics masquerade as medical facilities, are not covered entities under HIPAA, and for decades have vigorously pushed back against even the most basic forms of accountability,” Rosen said. “Women nationwide face real harms as these fringe clinics trap them between illusions of confidentiality and the actual legal protections they receive. This dangerous gap demands legislative action.”

State requirements for ultrasounds

While the seminar guided attendees to exercise caution around ectopic pregnancies to avoid legal liability, the NIFLA representatives also outlined the organization’s opposition to legislative efforts in some states to strengthen licensing requirements around ultrasounds, mentioning bills introduced in Indiana and New Jersey that would require ultrasounds to be performed only by licensed health care professionals. While pregnancy centers do employ some medical personnel, much of the work done there is through volunteers, some with no medical background.

“Some of them could be pretty damaging to centers,” said one representative. “So we want to make sure that if you hear of any bills in your states, we want to know about it, and we want to help you with that.”

An Indiana state representative, Democrat Maureen Bauer, said she introduced the bill in response to an ectopic pregnancy that was missed at a crisis pregnancy center.

“That is why I filed HB 1094 to require licensure for anyone operating a sonogram machine in Indiana,” she wrote in a Facebook post, “to ensure we do not have any more tragic stories like the young IUSB student who lost her child, and her ability to have children in the future due to a required hysterectomy, because the individual who provided her with a sonogram at a crisis pregnancy center did not identify her ectopic pregnancy.”

Actor Lynn Hamilton, who was best known for her characters in sitcom “Sanford and Son” and historical drama “The Waltons,” has died. She was 95.

A representative for the late actor, Calvin Carson, shared the news of her death in a joint statement posted on Facebook. He said Hamilton died on Thursday, June 19, “surrounded by her grandchildren, loved ones and caregivers.”

“With profound gratitude and admiration, we celebrate the extraordinary life of iconic actress Alzenia ‘Lynn’ Hamilton-Jenkins, whose remarkable legacy continues to uplift and inspire,” Carson said. “Her illustrious career, spanning over five decades, has left an indelible mark on the world of entertainment, motivating audiences across the globe through her work as a model, stage, film, and television actress.”

He went on to note her performance in “Sanford and Son” as nurse Donna Harris, as well as some of her other projects, like the comedy series “Dangerous Women,” historic soap opera “Generations” and miniseries “Roots: The Next Generations.” Hamilton starred alongside Diana Ross, Billy Dee Williams and Richard Pryor in “Lady Sings the Blues,” as well.

“Lynn was also the recipient of the prestigious NAACP Award, a testament to her outstanding contributions to the entertainment industry,” Carson added.

The rep then noted that Hamilton frequently collaborated with her late husband, playwright Frank Jenkins, during her career.

Carson concluded, “Her passing marks the end of an era, but her legacy will continue to inspire and uplift future generations.”

TODAY.com has reached out to Hamilton’s rep for additional comment.

Hamilton landed her first onscreen role in 1958 in the film “Shadows,” according to IMDb. She appeared on shows “Gunsmoke,” “Good Times” and “The Young and the Restless” in addition to her recurring roles on “Sanford and Son” and “The Waltons,” in which she played Verdie Foster.

Over the last two decades, she had roles on “Sister, Sister,” “Moesha” and “The Practice.” Her final role was on “Cold Case” in 2009, per IMDb.

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