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NEW YORK (CNN) — Actor Heath Ledger was found dead Tuesday of a possible drug overdose in a Lower Manhattan apartment, the New York Police Department said.

The Academy Award-nominated actor was 28.

Ledger was found naked and unresponsive, facedown on the floor at the foot of his bed by a housekeeper trying to wake him for an appointment with a masseuse, said police spokesman Paul Browne.

“Pills were found in the vicinity of the bed,” he told CNN.

“This is being looked at as a possible overdose, but that is not confirmed yet.”

Browne later told reporters some prescription medications were found in the room, including sleeping pills.

But he stressed police have made no determination of the cause of Ledger’s death — that would be done by the medical examiner.

He said the pills were not “scattered about.”

No note was found and there was no indication of foul play, Browne said. Ledger was found at about 3 p.m., and was pronounced dead at the scene by emergency personnel about 3:30 p.m.

A crowd of onlookers, photographers and reporters gathered outside the apartment building after news of Ledger’s death was reported. Police officers were guarding the doors.

Browne said he did not know how long Ledger had been renting the apartment, which he said took up the entire fourth floor.

An autopsy would be conducted on Wednesday, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the New York City medical examiner’s office.

Ledger’s family called his death “untimely and accidental,” The Associated Press reported.

“He was a down-to-earth, generous, kindhearted, life-loving, unselfish individual extremely inspirational to many,” his father said, according to the AP.

“Heath has touched so many people on so many different levels during his short life that few had the pleasure of truly knowing him.”

Hollywood reacts

Condolences began pouring in from Ledger’s friends and co-stars.

“I had such great hope for him,” said Mel Gibson, who played Ledger’s father in “The Patriot,” in a statement.

“He was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young age is a tragic loss. My thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.”

Actress Nicole Kidman, a fellow Australian and close friend of Ledger’s, said in a statement, “What a tragedy. My heart goes out to his family.”

At the time of his death, Ledger had just finished playing the villain The Joker in “The Dark Knight,” the latest installment in the Batman series. The film is to open in July.

Ledger was born in Perth, Australia, and named Heathcliff Andrew after the main characters of Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights.” He began acting at a local theater as a child.

Ledger’s first American film was the teen comedy “10 Things I Hate About You” in 1999, and he immediately attracted attention from Hollywood. He passed up several scripts before taking a role in the Revolutionary War drama “The Patriot” in 2000 and “A Knight’s Tale” in 2001. He also played a supporting role in “Monster’s Ball,” among other films.

“In a way I was spoon-fed a career,” he told the Glasgow Herald in 2005. “It was fully manufactured by a studio that believed it could put me on their posters and turn me into a product. … I hadn’t figured out properly how to act, and all of a sudden I was being thrown into these lead roles.”

Controversial role

But Ledger was perhaps best known for his 2005 portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in “Brokeback Mountain,” about two cowboys who had a secret romantic relationship. The role earned him an Oscar nomination.

“I felt that choices were being made for me, so I feel this has been my time now to find the good stories and test myself,” Ledger told the Glasgow Herald in the 2005 interview. “It has been an interesting year, where I finally have a sense of accomplishment.”

Asked how he felt about filming love scenes with another man, Ledger said he and his co-star Jake Gyllenhaal simply focused on their roles.

“We can’t say that we weren’t nervous about it,” Ledger told Oprah Winfrey in 2006. “But once the first take was over, it’s like, ‘OK. So what? It’s kissing another human being. How are we going to finish this scene? Let’s get on with it and let’s get out of here.’ ”

In a written statement, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said it mourns Ledger’s death, adding that his portrayal of Del Mar “changed hearts and minds in immeasurable ways.”

Ledger has a daughter, Matilda Rose, born in 2005 to his then-girlfriend, Michelle Williams, who played his on-screen wife, Alma, in “Brokeback Mountain.” The couple have since separated.

“He was just so respected in the industry,” said Kim Serafin, senior editor of In Touch Weekly.

“It’s just horribly tragic. He was just a fine actor and a good person, so this is horribly sad and very unexpected.”

Here is the CNN news video:

That is the sad news on Heath Ledger’s Death

Here is President Bush’s Statement on the Bhutto Assassination

HORRIFYING millions of frightened Pakistanis, Benazir Bhutto, the leader of the country’s biggest political party, was assassinated on Thursday December 27th. Her attacker fired gunshots into her car as she was leaving a political rally in Rawalpindi, then exploded a suicide bomb. At least 15 of Miss Bhutto’s followers were also killed.

Miss Bhutto had been campaigning in Rawalpindi, the headquarters of Pakistan’s military elite, for an election set for January 8th. It may now be postponed. Pervez Musharraf, the country’s recently demobbed president, has convened crisis talks to discuss this latest, and potentially most grievous, example of instability in Pakistan. Supporters of Miss Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)—which had expected to win the election—were meanwhile reported to be gathering in angry protests across the country.

Even before Miss Bhutto’s murder, the election campaign had been bedevilled by political conflict and terrorism. The role of each of its main actors—including Miss Bhutto and Mr Musharraf—has been contested in the courts and on the streets, against a backdrop of worsening insurgency and Islamist terrorism.

Miss Bhutto had returned to Pakistan in October to lead her party, after an eight-year self-imposed exile. The event was marked by a suicide bomb attack on her homecoming parade in Karachi, which killed over 140 people. Islamists terrorists, fighting an insurgency in north-western Pakistan, had previously threatened to kill Miss Bhutto. They are probably behind her murder.

A discredited former prime minister, accused of massive corruption, Miss Bhutto had won grudging praise from many Pakistanis for her courage in defying the terrorists’ threat. For her devoted supporters—including a large majority in southern Pakistan—this confirmed Miss Bhutto as the country’s rightful ruler. She was the last surviving offspring of a revered former prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. He was hanged by a previous army ruler.

In her final political address—a few minutes before her death—Miss Bhutto alluded to the risk she was running. She said: “I put my life in danger and came here because I feel this country is in danger. People are worried. We will bring the country out of this crisis.”

In fact, Miss Bhutto’s party was not expected to win an outright majority in the election. But, under her leadership, it was likely to emerge as the biggest party in the poll. If so, Miss Bhutto would have expected to play a leading role in a coalition government, perhaps as prime minister for an unprecedented third term.

Despite the previous violence, and expectations that Mr Musharraf would rig the election, the poll had generated fragile hopes in Pakistan. After all, largely in response to popular demand—and certainly against his wish—the election campaign has seen Mr Musharraf rebrand himself as a civilian ruler. Many Pakistanis hoped that even a flawed election next month would be better than the sham democracy he had overseen for eight years as president in a general’s uniform.

These hopes have now been dashed. Despite her failings, Miss Bhutto was the unrivalled leader of Pakistan’s biggest and most secular party—an astonishingly resilient survivor of on-off military rule. It was thus that America and other western powers urged Mr Musharraf first to encourage Miss Bhutto back from exile, then to share power with her. And indeed that had looked likely, until her violent homecoming. Miss Bhutto blamed senior army officers with Jihadist sympathies for that attack.

Alas, her supporters are now likely to blame her killing on the same shadowy army elite. And with stronger possible justification: Miss Bhutto’s killer is alleged to have approached to within 20 yards of her car, carrying a gun, dressed in a police uniform. At the least, such a lapse in the security afforded to Mr Musharraf and his supporters would be unimaginable.

At a time of shock and mourning—in a country well-accustomed to both—new uncertainties weight heavily in Pakistan. One concerns the future of the PPP, which may not survive without a Bhutto at the helm. Without the PPP, or something much like it, Pakistan may have no easily imaginable secular and democratic future.

As news of Miss Bhutto’s slaying spread, Nawaz Sharif, another former prime minister, who leads the second opposition party, called for solidarity: “My heart is bleeding and I’m as grieved as you are.”

SAN FRANCISCO - The San Francisco Zoo was closed to visitors and considered a crime scene Wednesday as investigators attempted to determine how a tiger escaped from its enclosure and attacked three visitors, killing one of the men and mauling two others.

The tiger, a female named Tatiana, was the same animal that ripped the flesh off a zookeeper’s arm just before Christmas 2006. An investigation of that incident by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health faulted the zoo, which beefed up the pen where big cats are kept.

The three men _ one of them 19 years old and the others in their early 20s _ were attacked just after 5 p.m. Tuesday on the east end of the 125-acre zoo grounds near Ocean Beach, police spokesman Steve Mannina said.

They suffered “pretty aggressive bite marks,” Mannina said.

Police searched the zoo grounds during the night, using searchlights and thermal imaging equipment, and again during daylight, and were confident there were no other victims, Chief Heather Fong said at a news conference Wednesday.

Fong said police deemed the area a crime scene “because we’re not certain why the incident occurred _ as result of human action or whether this was an incident where the animal was able to get out of the grotto.”

Investigators were gathering physical evidence and taking statements from witnesses, Fong said. She declined to comment on what the surviving victims said about the attack, saying that the investigation was continuing.

Fong added that to her knowledge there was no video footage of the attack.

The San Francisco medical examiner had not been able to identify the dead man, investigator Tim Hellman said Wednesday. The man did not have any identification and no one had called asking about him, according to Hellman.

The zoo’s director of animal care and conservation, Robert Jenkins, could not explain how the 300-pound tiger escaped. The tiger’s enclosure is surrounded by a 15-foot-wide moat and 20-foot-high walls, and the big cat did not leave through an open door, he said.

“There was no way out through the door,” Jenkins said. “The animal appears to have climbed or otherwise leaped out of the enclosure.”

Jack Hanna, the director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and a frequent guest on nationally televised talk shows, predicted that other U.S. zoos would reassess their tiger enclosures if it turns out the tiger was able to leap out.

“This is a first in this country,” Hanna said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “I’ve never heard of an individual (zoo visitor) being killed by an animal. It’s much safer going to a zoo than getting in your car and going down the driveway.”

Hanna said he wasn’t familiar with the San Francisco Zoo’s tiger exhibit or with Tatiana, but he said that since zoo tigers are well fed, it’s unlikely the animal was looking for food.

Hanna said he wanted to know if anyone was teasing the tiger. “Were they taunting the animal? I don’t know that right now,” he said. “Were they throwing things that were making it angry?”

The two injured men, ages 19 and 23, were upgraded to stable condition Wednesday at San Francisco General Hospital after surgery to clean and close their wounds, said surgeon Rochelle Dicker. They suffered deep bites and claw cuts on their heads, necks, arms and hands.

Dicker said they were shaken up emotionally and would remain hospitalized for the day, but that because of their youth they would make a full recovery.

The officers who shot the animal were alerted by a 911 call from a zoo employee.

The first attack happened right outside the Siberian’s enclosure _ the victim died at the scene. A group of four officers came across his body when they entered the dark zoo grounds, Mannina said.

The second victim was about 300 yards away, in front of the Terrace Cafe. The man was sitting on the ground, blood running from gashes in his head and Tatiana sitting next to him.

The cat attacked the man again, Mannina said. The officers approached the tiger with their handguns. Tatiana moved in their direction and several of the officers fired, killing the animal.

Only then did they see the third victim, who had also been mauled.

Although no new visitors were let in after 5 p.m. Tuesday, the grounds had not been not scheduled to close until an hour later, and 20 to 25 people were still in the zoo when the attacks happened, zoo officials said.

The zoo was expected to reopen Thursday, but its executive director, Manuel Mollinedo, said the big cat exhibits will remain closed “until we get a better understanding of what actually happened.”

Zoo officials working with experts from other zoos will re-evaluate the big cat facilities “so we can have a better way of managing these animals in the future,” Mollinedo said.

There were five tigers at the zoo _ three Sumatrans and two Siberians.

On Dec. 22, 2006, Tatiana reached through the bars of her cage and grabbed a keeper, biting and mauling one of the woman’s arms and causing deep lacerations. The zoo’s Lion House was temporarily closed during an investigation. California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health blamed the zoo for the assault and imposed a $18,000 penalty.

After that attack, the zoo added customized steel mesh over the bars, built in a feeding chute and increased the distance between the public and the cats.

Mollinedo said zoo officials did not consider putting Tatiana down after the earlier attack, because in that case “the tiger was acting as a normal tiger does.”

Tatiana arrived at the San Francisco Zoo from the Denver Zoo a few years ago, with zoo officials hoping she would mate with a male tiger. Siberian tigers are classified as endangered and there are more than 600 of the animals living in captivity worldwide.