Protesters march into 3rd month

The “Occupy Wall Street” movement marched into its third month Friday after protests in several U.S. cities and parts of Europe, with 250 arrests and clashes with police in New York.

Thousands of activists protesting against alleged corporate greed marched across New York’s Brooklyn Bridge Thursday in a show of force after being evicted from their home base in a Manhattan park earlier this week. The protests were part of a “Global Day of Action.”

Police evicted protesters in Los Angeles and Dallas, arresting dozens of people in the latest crackdowns on the tent camps that have sprouted in several U.S. cities.

In London, protesters refused to budge as a deadline to leave their camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral passed, with the City of London Corporation now expected to start legal action to remove them.

“ Another world is possible!” chanted the crowd on the Brooklyn Bridge, which organizers said was 20,000 strong.

Union activists and students joined the movement’s hardened members for the march, which was kept to the bridge’s pedestrian walkway - allowing evening rush hour traffic to proceed unhindered. Trucks and cars honked their horns in support of the demonstrators, who carried small electric candles in a festive atmosphere.

“Economic disparity has become worse and worse and we’re becoming a third world country. The people who have the most are not paying their fair share,” said 72-year-old Helen Engehardt. “The people who turned Wall Street into Las Vegas are not being held accountable.”

The march came after a day of acrimony between protesters and police outside the New York Stock Exchange, where clashes led to more than 200 arrests.

In Washington, more than 200 protesters marched under police escort through the heart of the capital and across a bridge over the Potomac River. In Chicago, thousands blocked rush hour traffic as they marched past financial institutions to a rally in front of the Chicago Board of Trade, chanting “Banks got bailed out! We got sold out!”