Snowstorm tests resolve of Wall St protesters

A rare October snowstorm tested the resolve of anti-Wall Street protesters camped in a New York park yesterday, as police arrested demonstrators in Denver and evicted others from a Nashville plaza.

The rare October snowstorm barreled up the heavily populated US East Coast yesterday, threatening up to a foot (30cm) of snow, cutting power to nearly a million households and forcing at least 1,000 flight cancellations.

Snow was falling from central Pennsylvania well into Massachusetts after blanketing parts of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland earlier in the day, AccuWeather.com said.

The storm brought more than an inch (2.5cm) of snow to New York's Central Park, breaking a record that had stood since 1925, AccuWeather.com said. America's most populous city stood to get 3 to 6 inches (7.6 to 15cm) of snow before the storm tapers off last night, AccuWeather.com senior meteorologist Alan Reppert said.

Snow also fell in the US capital, Washington, and demonstrators marched in sleet to the US Treasury to urge higher taxes on the financial sector, beating a drum and chanting "Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!"

Buffeted by strong winds, protesters hunkered down in snow-covered tents in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, where the Occupy Wall Street movement against economic inequality first set up camp six weeks ago, sparking dozens of similar occupations in city parks across the United States.

A day after New York authorities confiscated their generators, hundreds of protesters struggled to stay warm and dry after more than an inch (2.5cm) of snow fell in the city with temperatures forecast to drop to freezing overnight.

"We knew this would be tough. We didn't start this as a sort of summer of love, it's the winter of discontent," said Alan Collinge, 41, from Seattle, poking his head out a tent.

He estimated one in five protesters in the park had left due to the unusually early storm, but added, "They'll be back, we're not going anywhere."

On Friday,! the New York Fire Department took away six generators and fuel that had been powering heat, computers and a kitchen at the camp because they were considered a safety hazard, a move that Mayor Michael Bloomberg said was not a bid to remove the protesters.

But recent evictions of demonstrators in places like Oakland, California, where police used tear gas and stun grenades, and Atlanta, have the protest movement on edge.

In Nashville, state troopers swept through a makeshift camp in Legislative Plaza for a second night on Saturday to enforce a curfew and 26 people were taken into custody for refusing to leave. They were given misdemeanor citations for trespassing.

Judicial authorities have told police there are no grounds to charge the protesters and have also questioned the legality of the 10pm curfew used to clear the plaza.

In Denver, at least seven "Occupy Denver" protesters were arrested when they tried to take over the steps of the state capitol building, police Lieutenant Matt Murray said.

About 2,000 demonstrators marched peacefully through downtown Denver as they have for the past several Saturdays, Murray said, but the situation heated up when some protesters entered the capitol grounds. Riot police moved in firing pepper spray and mace into the crowd.