People

When the Associated Press sent correspondent Jonathan Katz to Haiti two years ago, it was because of a promotion. The 29-year-old from Louisville, Ky. learned the local Creole language and became the only full-time U.S. journalist based in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. He is now homeless following Tuesday's earthquake.

By the time you read this, Conan O'Brien may be a free man. After taking a hard line with The Tonight Show host, and even reportedly threatening to bench him for the duration of his contract if he didn't accept a 12:05 a.m. time slot, NBC is suddenly said to be on the verge of a deal that would cut O'Brien loose and send him on his way with a substantial wad of cash.

When he was younger, Brian Goerke was the envy of the kids in his neighborhood because his father Donald invented SpaghettiOs, a dish which has been a staple in children's diets for decades. For his efforts, Donald Goerke earned the nickname the "Daddy-O of SpaghettiOs."

Big banks have decided that big pay trumps good PR. In a move that is sure to irritate an already outraged public, major U.S. banks paid out $145 billion in compensation in 2009, up 18% from 2008 according to a study by The Wall Street Journal. The survey covered 18 financial firms and showed that pay packages were 32% of the revenue of these firms. Some firms quarreled with the paper's methods, but its figures are probably not far off the mark.

Ever since 2006, when Barry O'Callaghan merged Houghton Mifflin with Harcourt, HMH has been nothing but a river of deep, mounting debt for the Irish education-publishing magnate and HMH's parent company, Education Media & Publishing Group. Even two debt restructurings as recently as August left the company holding more than $6 billion in debt, and in danger of defaulting on a slew of creditors -- some with plenty of troubles of their own. But O'Callaghan might have a savior in hedge-fund manager John Paulson (pictured).

President Barack Obama has pledged the "full support" of the U.S. government to Haiti after the island nation suffered an epic earthquake that may have left untold thousands dead and injured. What he did not mention is America's generosity may come with a hefty price tag as the federal deficit is mushrooming from spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

John Thain, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch and NYSE Euronext (NYX) is the top candidate for the CEO job at CIT. CIT recently emerged from Chapter 11, but it still faces problems raising the capital required to make the thousands of loans to small and medium-sized business that are its major activity. CIT has formed a bank that it hopes will take in enough deposits to underwrite the balance of its traditional operations. But many of its former clients are likely to be gun-shy about doing business with a company which has had such deep financial problems.

Chatting with Bill O'Reilly on FOX News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor on Tuesday was a chance for former Alaska governor Sarah Palin to adjust her chair and pick out her coffee mug: It was her debut as correspondent with the network. And in true FOX News fashion, Palin's interview with O'Reilly was so generous as to swing into granny-pitch territory, in which the often bombastic host let her, unchallenged, "set the record straight" following a critical look at Palin on CBS' 60 Minutes on Sunday.

Delta Airlines (DAL) and Continental Airlines (CAL) are raising the fees they charge customers to check baggage, underscoring how the cash-strapped industry is trying to squeeze every nickle from the flying public. About the only winners from this trend are the package-delivery companies.

Dan Rather is absolutely, positively, definitely not getting the vindication he sought from CBS. The New York Court of Appeals saw to that Tuesday, dashing the former network anchor's hopes of resurrecting his $70 million lawsuit against his former employer.

Harold Ford Jr., the former Tennessee congressman now preparing a Democratic primary challenge against New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, is considered one of the most talented politicians of his generation. But with public outrage toward Wall Street at an all-time high, Ford's deep ties to the financial community could work against him.

NBC Universal Chairman Jeff Zucker would like nothing more than to be regarded as a brilliant long-term strategic thinker. Unfortunately for his ambition, reality has consistently suggested otherwise. He failed to program a replacement for Friends, even though it was the key to NBC's prime-time dominance. He failed to anticipate that Jay Leno wouldn't want to take early retirement. And then he failed to foresee how thoroughly uninterested audiences would be in a prime-time version of Leno's shtick.

JP Morgan's (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon is "tired" of his employees being vilified over bonuses. He first made his feelings known in late December when he called British Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling and threatened to pull out of a $2.4 billion investment in London's Canary Wharf financial district because of Britain's bonus tax. Yet politicians and ordinary Americans see that the banks want it two ways: a "socialized" system when they need help but a private system when it comes to doling out the profits.

Simon Cowell, often mean, but rarely wrong, is calling it quits from Fox's American Idol after this season, he told the Television Critics Association on Monday. Cowell says he plans to focus on developing a U.S. version of the U.K. program The X Factor, in which he has an ownership interest. Logistically, Cowell could not do both programs, according to OK, a British celebrity magazine.

What will Sarah Palin do now? That was the prevailing question among watchers of the former Vice Presidential candidate when she quit her job as Alaska governor in July. With her book, Going Rogue, finished, her prospects on the speaker's circuit dim. Yet the question remained open -- until Monday afternoon, when The New York Times uncovered one answer: She's becoming a contributor to Fox News.