For updates on the murky details emerging from the media coverage of actor Heath Ledger's death, including drug test results performed on a rolled-up $20 bill found at his apartment, click here.

In light of Heath Ledger's tragic death—which might or might not have been related in some fashion to prescription sleep aids!—Paramount Public Relations would be more than happy to arrange an interview with one of a certain health website's many experts in Holistic Sleep Aid Solutions! Blast email attached.

Wanting to avoid any accusations of cynically using Heath Ledger's death as a news peg for the debut of a new PSA discouraging teens from abusing prescription drugs, the President's staff postponed his public preview of the ad until later in the week; while that still might not be enough time to avoid all associations with yesterday's tragedy, the chief executive will be able to better rehearse his answers about his complicated feelings on Brokeback Mountain. Said Press Secretary Dana Perino: "Given the tragedy of yesterday's passing of the beloved actor, we did not want anyone to think we were trying to link into that story in any way." [ABC Political Radar]

Some upsetting new evidence has emerged in the Heath Ledger case: Along with the prescription drugs that were found in the apartment, police also recovered "a rolled up $20 bill with narcotic residue on it," and "several drug packets containing an unknown substance." This was all apparently listed in the original police report, and sent to their labs for testing. [wcbstv.com]

"Keri Russell on Nevins Street in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, being absolutely terrorized by paparazzi camping outside out of Michelle Williams' home. She was very sweet and calm, but clearly unnerved to tears by the seven or eight big men trying to snap shots of her having her a cup of coffee. Her husband picked her up about twenty minutes later."

Above, a makeshift tribute to both the late Heath Ledger and the almighty dollar, found at a Best Buy in San Diego. It's the tip of the bad taste iceberg. Join us on a trip through the void where we once pretended to store the concept of our shared humanity, won't you?

Let's just get on with this. A round-up of where we are so far with yesterday's shocking death of Heath Ledger at age 28:
· An autopsy has proven inconclusive, and will take another 10 to 14 days before toxicology and histology reports tell us what caused his death. [CNN]
· Heath had pneumonia. [TMZ]
· Kim Ledger, Heath's father, made a statement to the press, confirming the "untimely and accidental passing of our dearly loved son, brother and doting father of Matilda." [skynews.com.au]

Not surprisingly, the phrase "Heath Ledger" was Google's fastest-rising search term yesterday. The second most buzzy? "Keith Ledger." Who is maybe a video game designer but definitely not a dead leading man. Even HuffPo couldn't get it straight, tagging many of their Ledger posts, including Bonnie Fuller's, with "Keith" instead of "Heath." The blunders weren't limited to the web. On Larry King last night, Daily News gossip columnist and Aussie (Just like Heath! Book him stat!) Ben Widdicombe was identified as "Ben Witticombe," much to his chagrin, we're quite sure. Notice any other bloopers from yesterday's frantic coverage of the actor's death? Let us know.

It's conventional wisdom that, by dying young, you at least get to stay pretty. Lots of stars burned out too fast: from Heath to Jimi, Janis and John Belushi, River Phoenix, Kurt, Anna Nicole. The consolation prize of an early death is that you get to avoid the indignities of age. Dead celebrities traditionally become more famous, more than they would have had they managed to stay alive, kind of a reverse fameball. They turn into legends, or at least an E! True Hollywood Story. But this may be changing.

The New York Times' Heath Ledger obit, under Times lifer James Barron's byline, features additional reporting by no less than 14 other contributors, including "Culture Reporter" David Carr, byline champ Sewell Chan, and the Arts Desk's Campbell Robertson. (Sheila McClear, Maggie Shnayerson, and Hamilton Nolan contributed reporting to ours.) [NYT]

Part of Heath Ledger's appeal, to a certain breed of cultural snob, was geographic. The Australian actor, who had come to Hollywood at the age of 19, received less attention from the paparazzi and the entertainment media complex when he crossed to New York. But, in exchange, he gained some cultural cachet.

Some of the details surrounding Heath Ledger's death yesterday have been a little murky, with conflicting reports from various media outlets. Let's answer some of your basic questions.

Former Gawker editor (and probably one the best we've ever had) Alex Balk now works at Radar. You'd think working at Gawker for so long is when he'd lose his soul but that turns out not to be true. It was under Radar's watch that on January 22nd, Alex Balk lost whatever shred of humanity lurked inside his hoary albeit well-sculpted bosom, or so his tumblr says.

Everyone is pretty aghast at the untimely death of the handsome and talented 28-year-old Australian actor Heath Ledger. He was found dead in an apartment at 421 Broome Street at 3:26PM by his masseuse and pronounced dead at 3:45PM. Moments later reports of his death, each telling augmented with bits of speculation, started to circulate. As we noted, the New York Times' Sewell Chan was strangely all over the story though Radar seemed to the first to post the news at 4:36pm. Soon Maggie posted an item on Gawker, TMZ and PageSix.com both reported, erroneously "world exclusives" and the race was on. A scrum of cameras gathered outside 421 Broome St. Yes, one was ours.

So how's The Dark Knight for goodbyes? Give us anything—Brokeback Mountain's heartache, Candy's cautionary tale of—gulp—heroin addiction, even Casanova (OK, not Casanova)—but not the The Dark Knight. Not that disfigured creep in the trenchcoat. Heath's last words to us can't be a menacingly growled, "It's all...part of the plan." His last note, not "Why so serious?" scrawled across a theatrical one-sheet in fingerpainted blood. Warner Bros. has issued this statement in response to his death:

Though recently spotted flirting with a roomful of celebrities in downtown New York, Heath Ledger was most recently linked to 21 year-old Australian model Gemma Ward. The blue-eyed blonde just wrapped her third feature film role (The Black Balloon, with Toni Colette) in Australia, but hasn't been spotted out and about at an event since November, when she attended a gala in Madrid solo.

Past a crowd of hundreds of cameramen and onlookers, Heath Ledger's body is removed from 421 Broome Street, the building in Manhattan's Soho where he was found earlier this afternoon.

Predictably, both TMZ and the New York Post's Pagesix.com are claiming exclusives on news of the apparent suicide of Heath Ledger. The New York Post's boast is rather marred by the borked timestamp on their web story, which was 4.41am, a full eleven hours before the death of the 28-year-old Australian actor. (Update: Perez Hilton claims an exclusive even though the purple-haired blogger was an hour late to the story.) But the earliest report we found was a rumor on Radar magazine's Fresh Intelligence blog, courtesy of Alex Balk, about five minutes before TMZ and Pagesix.com. And the most impressive coverage has been the New York Times' City Room blog, which had the news early, and quickly gave it texture, with recent quotes from the young actor, hinting at his depression. The Gray Lady has long refused to cover celebrity news, except in the most indirect of ways, despite the appetite of the reading public; online, at least, the Times has surrendered.

Though pronounced dead at 3:45pm EST, it took nearly three hours for the NYPD to survey the scene and ambulances to carry the body of Heath Ledger out the front door of his Broome Street apartment. Click through for footage taken by Gawker videographer Nick McGlynn.

Websites do the darnedest things. Or the most insensitive. Like how PageSix.com included articles titled "Heath Ledger and Yet Another Blond Girlfriend" and "Ladies, Look Who's Single!" as related items to the story of actor Heath Ledger's untimely death. Either that, or the Web editors are delivering a very subtle message about the desperate straits of Manhattan's single women.