Pope Francis' funeral to be held on Saturday
On Tuesday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: The world continues to react to the death of Pope Francis. His funeral is set for Saturday in Vatican City. Plus, what do American Catholics want from the next pope? USA TODAY National Correspondent Elizabeth Weise discusses a list of America's Climate Leaders when it comes to the corporate world. Harvard sues the Trump administration. Collection of defaulted student loans will restart May 5 for the first time since the pandemic. USA TODAY Economy Reporter Rachel Barber breaks down what 2025 graduates want from their future employers.
Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to podcasts@usatoday.com.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning, I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025, this is The Excerpt. Today, the world reacts to the passing of Pope Francis. Plus, Happy Earth Day, and what do 2025 graduates want in the workplace.
♦
The world continues to react to the death of Pope Francis. Those are the bells in Vatican City's St. Peter's Square, which rang yesterday to mark his death. He died of a stroke and irreversible heart failure, the Vatican said hours after announcing his passing yesterday morning. Cardinals from across the globe will soon gather under a shroud of secrecy at St. Peter's Basilica to decide who will replace him. The conclave to choose a new pope normally takes place 15 to 20 days after the death, and some 135 cardinals are eligible to participate in the secretive ballot.
Ordinary members of the church won't get a say in the decision, but when asked about what priorities they would want from a new Pope, Catholic people who spoke to the USA TODAY Network just hours after Francis' death were deeply divided. You can read more about that with a link in today's show notes. Meanwhile, according to the Vatican, Pope Francis funeral will be held on Saturday at St. Peter's Basilica. Leaders from across the globe, including President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, are set to attend. Trump ordered flags to fly half staff in honor of the late Pope.
♦
Today is Earth Day. 55 years ago, the first Earth Day started as a grassroots activist effort to raise awareness about air pollution, toxic drinking water, and the effects of pesticides. This year I caught up with USA TODAY national correspondent Elizabeth Weise, to discuss how a growing number of large companies disclose their carbon emissions. Hey there, Beth.
Elizabeth Weise:
Hey, how's it going?
Taylor Wilson:
Good, thanks for hopping on this Earth Day. So let's just start with this. What is USA TODAY's America's climate leaders ranking?
Elizabeth Weise:
So for the last three years, USA TODAY has been collaborating with a market research firm called Statista to do an analysis of U.S. companies, big companies, that have lowered their carbon emissions significantly. And we start out with a list of, I mean this year it was like 2,000 and we got it down to 700, and then I went through all 700 companies, and then we got it down to 500. And the idea is to give consumers and people who are thinking of investing in a company a sense of what companies are doing that is lowering their carbon emissions.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. So how do companies make it onto this list, Beth?
Elizabeth Weise:
There's a lot of criteria, you can go through the story and kind of see all the various ways that companies do this. A company gets on this list because they have lowered their carbon dioxide emissions, which are the greenhouse gases that cause climate change. But because we want it to be apples and apples, we adjust that by revenue so that if Xerox lowers its carbon by a little bit, is that the same as a smaller company doing it by a lot? And this is a measure called carbon intensity, and it's a pretty common measure used around the world to look at a company. "Well, what is their carbon intensity? How much CO2 are they putting out or CO2 equivalents per million dollars of revenue?"
Taylor Wilson:
So in terms of just kind of where this data comes from and looking at the numbers, I mean are companies required to make their carbon emissions data available?
Elizabeth Weise:
They are not. This was the subject of a rather long and torturous process for the Securities & Exchange Commission, which in 2024 they finally came out with rules that would have governed exactly what information U.S. companies had to make available. And then it was immediately challenged in court and they finally pulled back and it's not going to happen. So really in the United States at this point, there is no federal requirement that companies do this. What was heartening is that a remarkable number of companies actually do.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah. Well, and you also write that companies face strong economic pressure, right, to fight climate change on some of these fronts. Can you talk through that? Why is that?
Elizabeth Weise:
Yeah, so that was I think the most interesting thing to me. And we're at a position in the United States right now where the Trump administration is rolling back a lot of the climate initiatives that the federal government has done, and a lot of companies had moved forward with pretty intensive climate emissions. So you might think that they were pulling back from that, but there's two reasons that they're not.
And the first is it saves them money. I mean I talked to all these business professors and analysts and they all said the same thing, which is if you are a company and you are lowering your carbon intensity, there is a very good chance and there's a lot of data to back this up, they are also saving your customers money because you are lowering the amount of waste in your system. You're looking for ways to streamline and make more efficient what you do. So it's kind of one of those win-wins.
And then the other part of it is that even if there aren't any requirements for this, there are a lot of consumers who still care about this, there are a lot of investors who care about this, and these are large companies. Their market is not only in the United States, their market is global. And we're becoming somewhat of an outlier in the fact that we are turning away from looking at the climate intensity of our businesses. The rest of the world still cares about this deeply, and so if you want to borrow money, if you want to have customers, if you want to have investors or insurance companies even look at this. So companies are finding that even if they're not being required to do it saves them money and it's likely to help their bottom line.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. So which companies in particular Beth this year stood out to you from this list?
Elizabeth Weise:
Well, the top three this year were Dayforce, which is a human resources and software company in Minnesota. They switched to 100% renewable energy across their global operations, so they went way down. Zillow Group, which is a real estate site if you've ever looked up where you live to find out what it costs or maybe thought of another house, Zillow actually lowered its emissions quite well. And Aramark, which is a food services and facilities management company, if you've ever eaten at a company cafeteria or perhaps a dorm, you've probably eaten their food, and they've done a good job as well.
And then there's the other 500 companies, and if you go on the website, you just type in the name of a company and if it's on the list, it'll pop up and it will show you a bunch of information about what that company has done so you can get kind of an in-depth look.
Taylor Wilson:
Is the idea that this will be an annual kind of check-in going forward?
Elizabeth Weise:
Indeed. Yeah, this is our third year doing it, and we're committed to continue doing it because as I said, it's a useful metric, even if you just want to invest or do business with companies that are saving money and being more efficient and with the added bonus that they're also lowering carbon emissions, which is a good thing.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, great piece from you, Beth. Again, folks can find a link in today's show notes. Elizabeth Weise is a national correspondent with USA TODAY. Happy Earth Day, Beth.
Elizabeth Weise:
Happy Earth Day to you too.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
Harvard University sued the Trump administration yesterday alleging it unlawfully threatened the school's academic independence and research work. The lawsuit comes after the Trump administration announced it was freezing more than $2 billion in funding to the school, which resisted demands to ban masks in diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The suit alleges the government violated Harvard's first amendment right to free speech by freezing the billions in funds and threatening additional cuts. "Harvard cannot freely make decisions on faculty hiring, academic programs, and student admissions as a result of the threats," it said.
♦
Since the pandemic, federal student loan borrowers have been mostly protected from the harshest consequences of not paying back their loans. But that's about to change. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the federal government will resume involuntary collections for borrowers and default on May 5th. That's less than two weeks away. While announced yesterday, the change had been expected for months. Collections for defaulted borrowers, of which there are more than 5 million, have been paused since March of 2020. Under former President Joe Biden, monthly student loan bills resumed in the fall of 2023, but collecting on loans still had not restarted by the time President Donald Trump took office a second time. You can read more about what to expect next month with a link in today's show notes.
♦
2025 graduates have some long wish lists for their future employers. I spoke with USA TODAY economy reporter Rachel Barber about some of the findings from Monster's 2025 State of the Graduate report. Rachel, thanks for joining me.
Rachel Barber:
Always happy to be here Taylor.
Taylor Wilson:
So Rachel, what did this report find about how confident this class of graduates are that they'll find a job?
Rachel Barber:
This year's graduates are confident they'll land a job. 83% think that it'll happen shortly after graduation, and 37 predict that it'll happen within four to six months, only 5% said they think it might take them a year or longer to secure a job. And most also feel confident that they're qualified for an entry-level role. And even more than that, 20% even reported that they feel overqualified for an entry-level position.
And so sort of to check in on their expectations, I spoke with an expert from a top recruiting firm and she said while it's great that they're confident and ambitious, they should also be realistic in today's job market. She said it's taking seasoned professionals a long time to find a job.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, so how confident are they that they'll find a job that they prefer?
Rachel Barber:
They're more realistic there. 48% said they think they will not be able to land a job at a company or organization they prefer, so there's some understanding that a dream job doesn't happen right away.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. What are some of the specific things, Rachel, this crop of graduates seems to really want from this first job out of college?
Rachel Barber:
Right now, a few weeks ahead of graduation, they've got a long wish list. They want remote work or at least a hybrid work schedule. They want competitive pay. Only 12% said they'd be willing to take an unpaid internship. But the most interesting thing that stuck out to me was that they care a lot about the work environment. 91% of them said they want to feel comfortable talking about mental wellness at work, so they want to feel comfortable bringing up mental health or maybe taking a day off for a mental health day. And they want to end up somewhere that aligns with their values, 71% said they won't work somewhere that openly supports a political candidate they oppose.
Taylor Wilson:
Interesting. And do they have any deal-breakers, anything kind of firm that they would want to avoid?
Rachel Barber:
2025 graduates' biggest deal-breaker is a company that doesn't offer work-life balance. So the conventional wisdom that the first years of your career are for grinding and working overtime and paying your dues, they're just not having it this year it seems, or at least they're not having it right now. Maybe they'll adjust. They also want growth opportunities and say that they won't work somewhere that doesn't have them. And at the end of the day, it does come back to money. For some of them, they say they won't work somewhere without competitive compensation and benefits.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. And we've touched on a few angles here, but what about their thoughts on traditional work practices?
Rachel Barber:
That was another piece that was really interesting. There are some drastic changes between the 2024 graduates and the 2025 graduates in terms of what workplace practices they think are outdated. This year, 67% said a typical 9:00-to-5:00 schedule is antiquated, which is up 12% from last year. And then also this year, 64% said they think that the five-day work week is outdated, which is up 10% from last year. And unsurprisingly, given their preference for remote work, 59% said they think that working in an office is also outdated.
Taylor Wilson:
Great, fascinating findings. Rachel Barber covers money for USA TODAY. Thanks Rachel.
Rachel Barber:
Thank you, Taylor.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
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