A mountain lion that wandered into an Altadena neighborhood was tranquilized Monday and removed by authorities, a state wildlife official said.

The lion was first spotted around 7 a.m. after ambling a mile and a half from Angeles National Forest, California Department of Fish and Game spokesman Steve Martarano said.

No one was attacked, but a nearby elementary school was placed on lockdown.

The 2-year-old, 65-pound male cat slept beneath bushes at one point before ducking into a backyard, where a Fish and Game department official shot it with a tranquilizer blow dart, Martarano said.

“It tried to run away, and then it just pooped out” next to a row of trash cans, he said.

Fish and Game officials removed the sedated cat in a blanket to transport it by truck back to the forest.

New York

Sen. Clinton: Rove obsesses about me

Reacting to a new book quoting Karl Rove as saying she will be the 2008 Democratic nominee for president, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that President Bush’s chief political strategist “spends a lot of time obsessing about me.”

The former first lady also said she believed Rove and other Republicans are using her to divert attention from Republican problems as the 2006 congressional elections approach.

“What they’re hoping is that all of their missteps, which are now numbering in the hundreds, are going to somehow be overlooked because people, instead of focusing on the ’06 election, will jump ahead and think about the next one,” Clinton, D-N.Y., said.

In “Strategery” by Bill Sammon, Rove is quoted as saying: “Anybody who thinks that she’s not going to be the candidate is kidding themselves.”