BRAVE MAG

NEED TO KNOW

• Rupert's decision to name Lachlan his sole successor led to a 2024 legal battle that divided the family

• The docuseries explores the complicated dynamics within the family and how the fight for succession tore them apart

The Murdoch family's contentious battle for power and succession is being retold in the four-episode docuseries,Dynasty: The Murdochs.

The Netflix docuseries, which hit the streamer on March 13, introducedRupert Murdochand hisfour oldest children— Prudence,Elisabeth,Lachlanand James —while sharing in-depth details on how Rupert built his billion-dollar multimedia empire.

In addition to news and business anecdotes, the docuseries also laid out the complicated and tumultuous relationships amongst the children and their father as they competed to succeed him as head of the media empire; a dynamic that inspired the award-winning dramaSuccession. A person familiar with the Murdochs told PEOPLE that some claims made about the family in the documentary were unverified.

Rupert eventually decided to go against the established family trust and announced he intended to make Lachlan his sole successor.

The following2024 court battle, in which Prudence, Elisabeth and James pushed back on their dad's decision, divided the family and left many of the siblings estranged from Rupert and Lachlan. In 2025, the case was settled withLachlan announced as Rupert's successor, and the other kids selling their billions of dollars in shares meaning they are no longer beneficiaries and have no voting rights. Rupert's two youngest children, Grace and Chloe, are beneficiaries of the trust with no voting rights.

Here are the five biggest bombshells fromDynasty: The Murdochs.

Rupert's family "panicked" after seeing theSuccessionepisode in which Logan Roy dies

The Murdoch family's complicated dynamics and battle for the media empire inspired the Emmy-award winning HBO seriesSuccession, which featured the fictionalized Roy family based on the Murdochs. Many members of the Murdoch family — except James — watchedSuccession.

The show hit a little too close to home for the family during a season 4 episode in which patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox), who is based on Rupert, suddenly and unexpectedly dies. At that point, Logan had not chosen a successor, and it causes mass chaos amongst the fictional family.

Elisabeth was watching the episode when she and her representative, Mark Devereux, allegedly started to "panic" over the possibility that their lives could look like that if they didn't figure out a plan.

As a result of the episode, Elisabeth and Devereux drafted the "Succession Memo," which listed all of the things that the four kids had to start considering in relation to what would happen after Rupert's death.

"This memo is circulated among the children, and the idea is that they're going to begin this conversation — if not with their father, then at least on the margins around their father,"The New York Timesjournalist and Murdoch expert, Jonathan Mahler, said in the Netflix docuseries.

Rupert's 2018 health scare made it "clear" to the family that they had no plan for succession

In January 2018, Rupert was 86 years old when he fell and suffered a serious back injury while yachting on Lachlan's boat with his then-wife,Jerry Hall. While the injury was reported at the time by several news outlets, it was not immediately made clear how potentially life-threatening it was and how unsettled the dynasty was at the time.

"Jerry Hall calls Rupert's children and says, 'Your father is severely injured and may die. You probably need to get to his  bedside and make whatever peace you can with him or want to with him,' " Mahler claimed in the docuseries.

After arriving to the hospital, the kids learned that the surgery to save Rupert's back could potentially kill him. Several reporters explained that while the kids were coming to terms with Rupert's mortality, they were also realizing that there was no succession plan in place.

"The family is operating as if this might be it," Jim Rutenberg, who is also a Murdoch expert forThe New York Timessaid in the doc. "This is also setting into motion the possibility that the four children are going to have to fight it out for control."

Rupert ended up surviving the surgery, but it allegedly left a feeling of uneasiness in the family.

Rupert allegedly favored Fox News chairman Roger Ailes' opinions over his sons'

InDynasty, several reporters and researchers claim that Rupert "pitted" his kids against each other and encouraged them to compete for both the business and Rupert's love and attention.

"He wasn't raising children — he was raising possible successors," Rutenberg claimed.

As part of that journey, he had several of his grown adult children work in different jobs across his media dynasty. At one point, Lachlan and James were both working at Fox News under chairman and CEORoger Ailes. However, Ailes allegedly didn't get along with either of the sons. On more than one occasion, Rupert reportedly chose to side with Ailes when he and the sons disagreed.

The interviewees recalled one intense disagreement between Ailes and Lachlan after Fox News was sent an envelope with what appeared to be anthrax in 2001. Lachlan allegedly urged the executives to keep the letter private under the advice of the FBI, but Ailes went public with the news anyway.

Advertisement

"Lachlan finds out about this and storms downstairs to confront Ailes directly, 'What are you doing?' " Australian journalist Paddy Manning claimed.

Lachlan reportedly tried to "calm Ailes down," but they ended up "verbally fighting in front of a huge number of people in the office," according toThe Washington Postjournalist Sarah Ellison.

"Roger goes directly to Rupert, and Rupert reassures him and says, 'Don't worry about the boy,' " Ellison added. "It was a classic Murdoch moment — business over family."

Ailes and Lachlan allegedly got into another heated argument shortly afterward when Lachlan vetoed a program that Ailes wanted to run. Ailes was reportedly "furious" over Lachlan's decision and went to Rupert, again. For a second time, Rupert allegedly sided with Ailes and left Lachlan feeling "incredibly frustrated and incredibly insulted."

"Rupert basically sent the message to Lachlan that you're not to cross Ailes, you're second fiddle here," Rutenberg said.

At the same time, Ailes had reportedly not respected James' role in the company and allegedly referred to him and Lachlan as "Tweedle Dumb" and "Tweedle Dumber," his wife, Elizabeth Ailes, claimed to theDaily Beastin 2023.

In 2016, several womenalleged that they were sexually harassedby Ailes. After conducting an investigation, James and Lachlan decided that Ailes was "bad news," and he resigned in July 2016.

"It was really a revenge moment for James and Lachlan," Ellison claimed in the doc. "They both had been wronged by Roger Ailes. He had mocked James. He had undercut Lachlan." Ailes died the following year.

Rupert allegedly told his lawyer to ask James "mean-spirited personal questions" during his deposition

The family tension and fight to succeed Rupert came to a head in 2024 when Rupert started a legal battle with Prudence, Elisabeth and James in hopes of changing the 1999 family trust to give Lachlan full control to succeed him. As a result of the shocking lawsuit, all four siblings and Rupert were deposed and spoke at length about their complicated dynamics and what they thought was in the best interest of the company.

While all the family members were grilled, James' deposition allegedly turned deeply personal.

"The deposition was much more difficult for James emotionally than I think he was prepared for,"The Atlanticreporter and Murdoch expert McKay Coppins shared. "When he walked into the board room, James saw that it wasn't just his father's lawyer and his lawyer — but sitting in this office was his father, himself. James didn't know that Rupert would be there. This is the first time he had seen Rupert in years — they were fully estranged — his dad just sat down across from him. They didn't talk to each other."

Although the father and son didn't directly speak to each other, Rupert's attorney "just grilled James with incredibly witheringly personal questions," per Coppins.

"[The attorney asked him] questions like, 'Have you ever accomplished anything on your own?' Or, 'Why don't you ever take responsibility for the things that go wrong in your life?' Or, 'Why were you too busy to call your dad on his 90th birthday? ' "

James struggled to focus on the questions, especially because he was allegedly seeing his dad either "staring inscrutably" at him or sending messages on his phone.

"Eventually, James realized that these super aggressive mean-spirited personal questions were actually coming from his father," Coppins claimed. "I remember talking to James weeks later and he was still sort of reeling from the experience. He couldn't quite believe what had happened. He was constantly analyzing it and trying to make sense about why his dad did what he did ... The question that kept coming back to him was, 'How did we let it come to this?' "

Over a year after they began their legal battle, the case was settled with Lachlan in line to take over for Rupert, and the other three siblings receiving $1.1 billion each for their shares. The new Murdoch family trust includes Lachlan and younger sistersGrace and Chloe, and will remain active until 2050, perThe New York Times.

James allegedly called his dad a "misogynist" who thought Elisabeth could never be his successor

Although Rupert had four grown children who could have potentially succeeded him, the race seemed to primarily center around James and Lachlan.

"Elisabeth is probably the media executive who has had the greatest success outside the Murdoch company of any of the kids, but Rupert is of a certain generation, so he always saw James or Lachlan as the most likely successor," Ellison claimed.

Coppins further alleged that James said his dad had "never considered" Elisabeth.

"James, for what it's worth, told me that Rupert is a misogynist and never considered Liz a viable successor," Coppins claimed.

Read the original article onPeople

"The large-scale weather pattern across the country will keep most of the heat locked up across the western half of the country through late in the month," saidAccuWeathermeteorologist Renee Duff in an email to USA TODAY.

Overall, she said thepattern through the first week of Aprilis likely to be cool and wet in the East, while remaining warm and dry in the interior Southwest.

Jose Castillo of Tarrytown, NY. walks through snow along Route 9 in Tarrytown during the early hours of the winter storm Jan. 25, 2026. The storm was predicted to drop up to a foot of snow on the lower Hudson Valley. A huge winter storm dumped heavy amounts of snow and ice across wide swaths of the U.S.

" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" />

See fun faces of people making the best of winter weather

Jose Castillo of Tarrytown, NY. walks throughsnowalong Route 9 in Tarrytown during the early hours of the winter storm Jan. 25, 2026. The storm was predicted to drop up to a foot of snow on the lower Hudson Valley. A huge winter storm dumped heavy amounts of snow and ice across wide swaths of the U.S.

Cold front on the way

As apotent storm roars across the Great Lakes,a strong cold front will move across the eastern half of the United States in mid-March. While temperatures will briefly surge ahead of this front, cold and blustery conditions will follow with temperatures 10-20 degrees below historical averages, Duff said.

Wind chill temperatures will be even lower, especially across the Great Lakes and Northeast, due to strong winds from the northwest.

There will be a risk of power outages as the strong winds sweep from the Rockies and Southwest over the weekend to the East Coast by Monday, March 16.

AccuWeather's long-range team expects the periods between March 17-20 and March 22-23 to be cold for late March in the East, with an increase in energy demands.

Advertisement

Slow transition to spring

After theunusual warmththat overspread the eastern United States, it looks to be a while before it gets that warm again.

"A slower transition to persistent spring warmth can occur from the northern Rockies to the Northeast," AccuWeather long-range expert Paul Pastelok told USA TODAY.

He added that there will be occasional warm-ups, but they will not last long before the next wave of chilly air arrives.

How hot in the West?

There could be more than a hundred record highs that are challenged across the Southwest, Rockies and High Plains next week with temperatures more typical of May, AccuWeather said.

NOAA's Weather Prediction Centersaid some locations could reach all-time high temperatures for the month of March, especially Phoenix, Las Vegas, Sacramento, and San Jose. Parts of the Desert Southwest may experience their earliest 100-degree temperature on record.

The early time of year and prolonged nature of this heat wave will increase the risk of heat stress when temperatures peak, the Weather Prediction Center said.

Doyle Rice is a national correspondent for USA TODAY, with a focus on weather and climate.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Spring forecast predicts when warm weather will return to eastern US

NEED TO KNOW

• Paulette Dorflaufer, a Holocaust survivor, has held the community role in New Jersey for 20 years

• "If she's not at her post, I get a text. Everywhere we go, people stop her," the 82-year-old woman's daughter said

An elderly crossing guard serves fabulous looks while on the job.

Paulette Dorflaufer helps children and other community members cross the street in New Jersey, all while rocking extravagant fur outerwear.

"[I have about] 13, 15 fur coats, and I change [my coat] every three days," Dorflaufer, 82, toldCBS News Chicago.

Dorflaufer, who was born in France, is also a Holocaust survivor. Her parents and five siblings died at Auschwitz, but she survived after she was taken to the hospital for surgery.

A nurse helped her escape, and she eventually made her way to the United States as a child, Dorflauferexplained in anInstagram video.

Dorflaufer previously worked as a dental assistant, a model and in cosmetology. She has been working as a crossing guard for 20 years.

In her personal life, Dorflaufer has raised three children, looked after her grandchildren and is soon to become a great-grandmother.

Rachel Frieman, Dorflaufer's granddaughter, told theDaily Voice, "She dresses like that no matter where we're going."

"She has fur in the winter, but in the summer it's a heel and a dress, and this fascinator chapeau situation in her hair," she added to the outlet of her grandmother.

Advertisement

"People always think she's celebrating something, but this is her," the family member further explained.

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE's free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Dorflaufer has an Instagram account where she explains how — and why — she chooses some of her looks.

In one recent clip, she said she chose an all-blue outfit and a matching sparkly headpiece for a specific reason.

"When I woke up, I felt I was in a blue mood," Dorflaufer playfully explained.

Other videos show Dorflaufer having fun as she puts her crossing guard vest over her fur coats.

Dorflaufer's daughter, Heather Frieman, told theDaily Voiceher mom is a staple in their local community.

"If she's not at her post, I get a text. Everywhere we go, people stop her," she explained.

"She's so bubbly, loves to talk to anybody," granddaughter Rachel added. "She's always happy, always positive and always has a smile on her face."

Read the original article onPeople