NEWS LITE : LOOKING FOR LEWINSKY; AUSSIE MASS MEDIA ON MONICA ALERT.

The tenacious Australian media pack sprang into action Thursday to chase a rumor that Monica Lewinsky was vacationing at the Port Douglas resort in far north Queensland.

Mike Berwick, the mayor of Douglas Shire, sparked the media feeding frenzy by telling Radio 4CA he had heard a rumor that the 24-year-old former White House intern was visiting.

``I've heard that it is correct that she is in town, and I heard that last night,'' he said.

Two Australian TV stations claimed to have a video of a young, dark-haired woman bearing a resemblance to Lewinsky boarding a boat for a trip to the Great Barrier Reef. However, the woman in the Channel 10 video was not Lewinsky, a fact reporters discovered Thursday afternoon when the boat returned to port.

Confirmation of the rumors proved elusive throughout the day.

One rumor had Lewinsky staying at the Sheraton Mirage in Port Douglas, where President Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton stayed during their 1996 presidential visit. An alternative version had Monica staying at an apartment in the area owned by her father.

Lewinsky was said to have slipped into town to escape the media glare over her liaison with Clinton.

The manager of Port Douglas Real Estate, Tim Ferrier, said Lewinsky was seen eating at the exclusive Nautilus Restaurant on Wednesday night, a claim restaurant manager Carmel Forrest denied.

``Honestly, neither I nor the staff know anything about her being here,'' Forrest said. ``I would be very surprised in the circumstances if she did because this is where Bill Clinton dined when he was here. She would hardly be likely to return here given what the president is going through.''

McCartney to carry on wife's work for animals

For the first time since becoming a widower, Paul McCartney will take to the concert stage next year for a cause near and dear to his heart: to keep alive his late wife Linda's crusade for animal rights. McCartney and Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders are putting together a series of concert gigs. No dates or sites yet. ``Good animal activists around the world might think, oh, God, we've lost a very powerful voice when we lost Linda,'' McCartney said. ``Well, we have. But my voice is there now, and I'm going to try to use it. We are going to keep up her good work.''

The former Beatle tells Animal Times magazine that the seeds of his activism and vegetarianism were sown decades ago back in England: ``When I was growing up in Liverpool, we had national service, so I was due to go into the army. I was dreading it. . . . I realized I'd have to learn to kill, so I used to go into the woods and kill frogs. I figured if I couldn't kill a frog, how was I ever going to bayonet a man? When I realized I was mistreating animals . . . that was the turning point. I made a decision one day in the woods: National service or not, I'm stopping this. I saw what lunacy it was, and I apologized to all the frogs.''

Ellen to be back in her own style

Ellen DeGeneres is still in fashion, even though her sitcom was canceled.

She will be host of the ``VH1 Fashion Awards'' television show, which will be taped Oct. 23 in New York and air on the cable channel Oct. 27.

Among the celebrity presenters will be Wesley Snipes, Rupert Everett, Courteney Cox, Salma Hayek and Claudia Schiffer.

Stern makes move into Manhattan digs

Howard Stern has given up the good life and daily commute from Long Island, N.Y., and embraced Manhattan living, plunking down $5.9 million for 4,000 square feet of shelter inside Millennium Tower on West 67th Street.

Stern shopped all summer via videos of NYC homes shot by real estate agents. And by going condo, he deftly avoided the scrutiny of co-op boards, whose members generally delight in rejecting Stern types. His new neighbors include two of his favorite mockees, Marv Albert and Regis Philbin.

Bond items auction has license to thrill

It's not quite all the gold in Fort Knox, but Oddjob's lethal bowler from ``Goldfinger'' sold for $104,700 on Thursday at a Christie's auction of James Bond memorabilia in London.

An anonymous bidder participating by phone bought the metal-rim hat that Goldfinger's henchman used to slice the head off a statue and kill a woman in the 1964 film about a plan to rob the nation's gold reserves. It drew the most interest and highest price of the 250 lots auctioned.

A Lotus Esprit S-1 automobile that doesn't have an engine fetched $49,000. Roger Moore's version of Agent 007 piloted the sleek submarine car in 1977's ``The Spy Who Loved Me.''

One of the more curious items up for grabs had never been in a Bond movie and carried an extra zero to boot - a ``0007'' British car license plate. Houmayoun Sharifi of London, who paid $54,000 for it, said it would go on his Bentley.

Also among the toys, posters, clothing and various other props on the block was the Rolex Oyster Perpetual watch Moore wore in his first Bond film, 1973's ``Live and Let Die.'' It brought $37,200.

News Lite is compiled by Karen Duffy from Daily News staff and wire reports

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

PHOTO (1) Journalists walk the beach Wednesday at Port Douglas in Queensland, Australia, hoping to find Monica Lewinsky. A local mayor told a radio station he heard the rumor she was there.

(2) Stern

(3) McCartney

(4) Domenico Morassutti with ``The Spy Who Loved Me'' Lotus Esprit S-1