Names and faces

LITTLE ROCK — The man convicted of gunning down the mother, the brother and the 7-yearold nephew of Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Hudson was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday. Hudson, who attended every day of William Balfour’s trial in Chicago earlier this year, sat next to her sister at the hearing and at one point dabbed her eyes with a tissue. The sentencing hearing came a little more than two months after a jury convictedBalfour in the Oct. 24, 2008, shooting deaths of Hudson’s 57-year-old mother, Darnell Donerson; her 29-year-old brother, Jason Hudson; and her 7-year-old nephew, Julian King. The judge sentenced Balfour to three terms of life in prison plus 120 years on other charges. “You have the heart of an arctic night,” Cook County Circuit Judge Charles Burns told Balfour. “Your soul is as barren as dark space.” Prosecutors portrayed Balfour, who was married to Hudson’s sister Julia Hudson, as a jealous estranged husband who often stalked Julia Hudson’s house after he moved out in early 2008. But Balfour’s attorneys suggested that someone else committed a crime in the family’s three-story house in Englewood on Chicago’s South Side. Balfour faced a mandatory life sentence. Illinois does not have the death penalty. Balfour gave a brief statement, offering his condolences to the Hudson family while maintaining his innocence.

Five stars of Modern Family have banded together and are suing to void their contracts to work on the hit comedy, arguing that the contracts are illegal under California law. The suit filed Tuesday by series stars Sofia Vergara, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Eric Stonestreet, Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell argues that their contracts with 20th Century Fox Television violate a California law prohibiting personal-service contracts from extending for morethan seven years. The lawsuit asks a judge to rule the contracts are illegal and should be voided because they prohibit the actors from other work. The lawsuit states the contracts bind the actors to work on the series from February 2009 and June 30, 2016. “Modern Family has been a breakout critical and financial success,” the lawsuit states. “That success, however, has been built upon a collection of illegal contracts.” A spokesman for 20th Century Fox said the studio had no immediate comment on the case. The hit show on ABC was recently nominated for 14 Emmy Awards, the most of any sitcom.