Two doctors are being investigated by the feds in connection with actor and Soho resident Heath Ledger's death. The Daily News reports that one doctor in California and one in Texas supplied Ledger with Vicodin and Oxycontin, and the feds want to know if the whole deal was legal. Nothing has been established yet. The two painkillers were among the six drugs in Ledger's system when he died of an overdose in January. [NYDN]

While media watchers speculated about the backstory over the Times' John McCain article, another journalistic tug-of-war was underway; this one over Richard Martin [photo via NYP], a crazy old coot handyman in Bay Ridge who leaves crazy, rude, threatening notes for his tenants. The blogs have been laughing at Martin for a while now, but today both the Post and the Daily News have stories about the man. For no apparent reason. It's a full-fledged tabloid war! What's the backstory here? We won't rest until we figure it out. [UPDATE: Could this link in an NYT blog have been the spark? Also, much more info and pictures of Martin's work here]. Below, two of Martin's helpful notes to his tenants—keep in mind his explanation that "They're Arabs, they don't give a fuck."

The Daily News had the perfect story on its hands: an exclusive about a lost animal, with a name, being rescued, from the dark scary subway complete with picture. In case you missed the six News stories on the practically (suspiciously!) made-for-media topic, adorable little "Georgia" here jumped out of her owner's cat carrier and scampered into the subway tracks, where she remained for 25 days. Then, OMG, the cat was rescued yesterday by heroic trackworkers, who are named and interviewed, and NYPD officers, who are named and interviewed, and the NYC Transit President called everyone heroes, apparently in some kind of emergency weekend interview. The News nearly had a perfect story, but then they had to make two puns involving "nine lives" and end on this quote from owner Ashley Phillips: "I can't believe she's going to be in the paper tomorrow." Still, well played. [Daily News]

The Daily News was very busy this afternoon telling everyone and their mom that the city tabloid will go all color by the end of 2009, making it the "first major market daily newspaper in the United States" to do so, according to a release. (Never mind that Europe's been doing this for years, along with plenty of far more inferior weeklies stateside.) Publisher Mort Zuckerman may not be losing quite as much money on his tabloid as Rupert Murdoch does on his Post, but we're fairly sure Mort's not changing the hue of his paper just so it'll look a little prettier at the prom.

Potential tabloid sports shocker! The Post stumbled onto a YouTube video of Mets' pitching ace Pedro Martinez presiding over a cockfight in the Dominican Republic. In a sinister twist, the video has now been pulled, and the owner of the blog that posted it did not immediately respond to the Post's emails. WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED? The Daily News was lagging on the story as of early this morning, meaning the Post is bound to hype it up as much as possible while they still have the competitive advantage. Just look at how much mileage the Atlanta papers (and everybody else) got out of the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal. But ask yourself, before the hysteria strikes: Is this story really a big deal?

Since January 20— the day the New York Giants won a trip to the Super Bowl— the New York Post has run 281 articles with the phrase "Super Bowl," an average of 20 freaking stories per day. Today, in addition to the daily 20, the Post also published a 32-page special pullout section on the game, and a wraparound cover with a team picture. The Daily News responded with its own 40-page special section that swallowed the entire Sunday paper, covering up other minor news like, you know, the paper's presidential endorsement (spoiler: Hillary). As a serious football fan who is gonna jet out of here pretty soon to go watch the game, I can only say: Thank God this shit is almost over.

Daily News gossip/lovers Rush and Molloy tell the entertaining story of a careless food critic who left her notebook at newly-refurbished Brasserie 44.

Of the 3,000 New Yorkers who die from the flu each year, 800 will be from Brooklyn, according to a city Dept. of Health doc in the Daily News. There's some bullshit explanation about low vaccination rates, mistrust of medicine within specific enclaves in the borough's central neighborhoods, blah blah blah. We all know exactly what the real cause is: the deadly virus vector host that is the goddawful F train.

The Daily News is gracing us today with the story of the Upper East Side's best doorman, voted as such by the residents he watches over at 460 E. 79th Street. "There isn't another doorman like Steve, and we're keeping him," says one. "He's part of the family here," another tells the News. Yeah, we totally make our 81-year-old relatives carry our bags and deliver our packages too!

The Daily News may not turn a profit this year, according to owner Mort Zuckerman, who told a British Parliamentary group studying the media in September that the news business is "a glorious way to lose money." In fact, in minutes from Zuckerman's meeting with the group obtained by Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici, Zuckerman paints a less than rosy picture of how the News is doing. Circulation figures and ad dollars are down, an advertising office in Detroit has been closed and so have all twelve of U.S. News & World Report's foreign bureaus. The New York Post is a "non-economic competitor," according to Zuckerman, meaning that the Post can afford to undercut the rival News by spreading out any losses around NewsCorp properties, something the smaller News can't do. In fact, Zuckerman's comments to the committee have a distinct smoke signals feel; could he be making overtures to potential buyers out there? Given who pointed out the Portfolio item to us&mdash Mort Zuckerman himself—we're going to go with 'probs.'

The Daily News continues to own the "human interest stories involving Scores strippers" beat (no wonder they're back on top—except for that little matter of how they're carrying so much bulk circ, but whatever!) with today's story of a dancer reunited with her two adorable dogs.

New York is depressing again! After years of relative safety and fun (and occasional terror), tourists across the nation are now flocking to New York City to entwine themselves forever with oblivion. According to the Daily News, more than 10% of New York's suicides are committed by out-of-towners— 407 of them from 1990-2004.

Was The Daily News brown-nosing just a bit with its wall-to-wall coverage of Hillary Clinton's 60th birthday party today? Not only was last night's Beacon Theater bash on their front page Wednesday, but the paper sent five of its editorial staff to cover last night's fiesta, including a gossip reporter, regular Clinton beat reporter Mike McAuliff, political editors Ian Bishop and William Goldschlag and Heidi Evans, who penned yesterday's space-filling News sidebar on the brush with death Hillary had with deep vein thrombosis. Not only, you know, eww, but it was almost ten years ago! Who cares! Then of course, there was Ben Widdicombe's actual live blogging of the event. Their headlines—"Hil of a milestone" and "Hillary Clinton 60th birthday bash rocks all the way"—are beyond drooly. Is this the only way to compete with Rupert Murdoch for her love?

Today brings the debut of blogger-cum-Daily News food critic Restaurant Girl, real name Danyelle Freeman. When the news was announced a week ago, we were frankly skeptical of her lack of skill and anonymity. While she has yet to openly announce that, no, she can't write very well, she has fully embraced her own faciness. Freeman's mug appears on the paper's website no fewer than three times.

Sources at the Daily News confirm that well-liked Metro editor Dean Chang—who more than one Daily News reporter described as "grace under pressure"—has involuntarily left the building. Another casualty of capricious editor-in-chief Michael Cooke Martin Dunn is National editor Mark Mooney, who was also given the boot today.

Last night was a send-off party for Jonathan Capehart—pictured here with social diarist David Patrick Columbia and Eric Gioia, the camera-adoring city councilman—who was a columnist and then an editorial page director for the Daily News, before going to work for Bloomberg (the news service) and literally going to work for Bloomberg (that mayor dude), with a slightly icky pitstop in publicity. He's off to the Washington Post editorial board. Extreme retention efforts are now being focussed on the other three black people allowed to work in New York's media. Lola Ogunnaike, expect flowers!

So, record numbers of slow-moving, five-abreast sidewalk-blocking Michiganders are in New York this month, pushing back the start of our workdays by keeping us from going where we need to go. Read the story. It's informative, if not particularly groundbreaking. The headline, however, is what's important. It appears to us as though the Daily News hasn't yet veered into the neverland of blog clich -dom, opting to use an actual heart symbol instead of claiming that the tourists in question "heart" New York.

With races as locked-up as these seem, it can be hard to motivate oneself to wake up even earlier to make it to the polls. We know. Boy, do we ever know. So in case you need some convincing that the adorable 'I voted!' sticker is worth all that extra effort, the Daily News has rounded up some "celebrities" to explain the glory of performing your civic duty. Read, and be inspired.

With all the chatter about "Tabloid Wars," we've failed to see anyone pass along this bit of knowledge, so we'll share it here with you. Apparently, the Daily News has final control over what will or won't air on the show. This clause was negotiated by The News' then-president Les Goldstein specifically to ensure that none of the inevitable scenes of reporters making fun of Mort Zuckerman would ever make it to the screen.

An interesting tidbit from Eat the Press: