NEW YORK – Just the mention of her name, J.K. Rowling, had the audience screaming and on its feet.

The “Harry Potter” author spoke for just over an hour before a capacity crowd Tuesday at Manhattan’s Lincoln Center in her sole U.S. public appearance to promote her first novel for grownups, “The Casual Vacancy.”

Rowling chatted on stage with fellow author Ann Patchett, read briefly from her new book and also responded to pre-selected questions from fans.

Patchett, who has a following of her own thanks to such novels as “Bel Canto,” gushed like the most avid Potter fan as she praised Rowling for inspiring countless readers and told Rowling how much she loved “The Casual Vacancy,” which has received mixed reviews.

Rowling said she felt a special connection to adolescents because of their “vulnerability” and how they come to comprehend there is “evil in the world.” Stories, she said, can help them explore their feelings.

Rowling also discussed the difficulty of structuring a book and how attached she becomes to her characters. She spoke up for traditional publishers and the editorial support they offer.

She didn’t just change her subject matter when she took on the new book. She changed the process. Rowling observed that with her Potter books, she did not allow anyone — not even her husband, Neil Murray — to see the manuscript before she had finished.

“I find that discussing an idea before I’ve written it,” she said, is a way to kill it.

But Murray was allowed early glimpses of “The Casual Vacancy.”

“He was — useful,” she said.

Flavor Flav charged after fight with fiancee

LAS VEGAS – Flavor Flav is jailed on felony assault and misdemeanor domestic battery charges after police say he argued with his fiancee and threatened to attack her teenage son with a knife.

Officer Bill Cassell says no one was injured in the scuffle about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday at a home in a residential neighborhood several miles southwest of the Las Vegas Strip.

The 53-year-old former rapper and reality TV star’s legal name is William Jonathan Drayton Jr.

He’s being held on $23,000 bail at the Clark County jail, with an initial court appearance scheduled Thursday.

Drayton was part of the 1980s and 1990s rap group Public Enemy.

Fox’s baby announced on Facebook

NEW YORK – Megan Fox has taken to social media to announce the birth of her baby boy.

The “Transformers” actress wrote on her Facebook profile on Wednesday that she and husband Brian Austin Green welcomed a son named Noah Shannon Green on Sept. 27. She describes him as “healthy, happy and perfect.” She goes on to say she and Green are “humbled” to be “the parents of this beautiful soul.”

Fox and Green were married in 2010. This is their first child together.

They began dating in 2004 when Green appeared on the TV show “Hope & Faith,” on which Fox had a supporting role. Green has a son named Kassius from a previous relationship with actress Vanessa Marcil.