Cher to auction 700 items from her Malibu home

Los Angeles – Come October, the highest bidder can sleep in Cher’s bed.

It’s one of 700 items from the superstar’s Malibu home that will be auctioned beginning Oct. 3. The sale includes furniture, artwork, jewelry, a 2003 H2 Hummer and original costumes by Bob Mackie.

The auction is expected to bring in more than $1 million, said Lee Dunbar of Sotheby’s, one of two firms administering the auction. The other firm is Julien’s Auctions.

A “nice percentage” of the proceeds will benefit the Cher Charitable Foundation, the 60-year-old singer-actress said.

She decided to put the items up for auction so she can redecorate.

Aretha Franklin to get a little respect

New York – Aretha Franklin will be the first female artist to receive the Award of Excellence from the United Negro College Fund.

The 64-year-old singer will receive the honor at the college fund’s “An Evening of Stars,” to be taped Sept. 8-9 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. The annual TV special will air nationwide in late January 2007.

Franklin is being honored for her work with the college fund to provide deserving students with access to higher education as well as for her activism and philanthropy on behalf of other causes.

Previous honorees include Lou Rawls, Quincy Jones and Stevie Wonder.

Boy George to serve hot, smelly sentence

New York – Boy George will perform his court-ordered community service by picking up trash on city streets in the August heat, a sanitation spokesman said.

The one-time Culture Club singer will be issued a shovel, broom, plastic bags and gloves when he reports Aug. 14 for five days of work, said department spokesman Vito Turso.

“This is the epitome of community service,” Turso told the Daily News for Monday editions. “It’s not like he’s going to be working in an air-conditioned office.”

Born George O’Dowd, the 45-year-old singer has struggled with drug problems for years. He was ordered to do community service after pleading guilty in March to false reporting of an incident. He called police with a bogus report of a burglary at his lower Manhattan apartment in October, and the responding officers found cocaine inside.

A Manhattan judge threatened the singer with jail time if he failed to complete his five days of community service before Aug. 28.

New task force to investigate rapper’s unsolved murder

Los Angeles – Six veteran homicide detectives are leading a new police task force investigating the unsolved 1997 killing of Notorious B.I.G.

The new probe comes in the face of a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the rapper’s mother, Voletta Wallace, and other relatives, who claim rogue police officers were involved in the killing, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

The lawsuit filed by the Wallace family ended in a mistrial last year when it was discovered that a police detective intentionally hid statements by a jailhouse informant linking the killing to two former officers.

B.I.G., born Christopher Wallace, was 24 when he was gunned down March 9, 1997, while leaving a party at a Los Angeles museum. The New York rapper, also known as Biggie Smalls, was one of the most influential hip-hop artists of the 1990s.

Joan Jett returns

to punk rock scene

New York – Joan Jett may be 45 now, but that doesn’t mean she’s outgrown punk.

“I never subscribed to the idea that punk rock means you have to play fast and scream,” Jett told Newsday in Sunday’s editions. “To me, it means being a rebel, being an underdog, being outside and doing it yourself.”

With a new album, “Sinner,” released on her own Blackheart Records label, Jett is reintroducing herself to a generation that probably knows her only as that lady who sang “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” in the early ’80s.

After appearing on the Warped Tour, Jett plans to embark on her own headlining tour in October with the Eagles of Death Metal tentatively slotted as support act.