Wall Street protests spreading

NEW YORK - Protests against the US financial system and economic inequality have spread across the country and gained sympathy from government officials.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, which started last month with a small number of young people pitching a tent in front of the New York Stock Exchange, has drawn a wide variety of activists, including union members and unemployed workers in more than a dozen cities.

They included Tampa, Florida; Trenton and Jersey City, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Norfolk, Virginia, in the East; Chicago and St. Louis in the Midwest; Houston, San Antonio and Austin in Texas; Nashville, Tennessee; and Portland, Oregon, Seattle and Los Angeles in the West.