Occupy protesters storm bank

San Francisco: Police arrested 95 Occupy protesters and students on Wednesday who stormed into a downtown San Francisco bank and shouted slogans as they tried to set up camp in the lobby.

The arrests came after about 100 demonstrators rushed into a Bank of America branch, chanting "money for schools and education, not for banks and corporations".

Police officers in riot gear cuffed the activists one-by-one as hundreds more demonstrators surrounded the building, blocking entrances and exits.

Officer Albie Esparza said 95 were arrested. Authorities said they were taken to jail, cited and released.

No injuries were reported.

Willow Curless, 63, said she and her husband rode their bicycles from their home in Marin County and watched the protest from outside the bank.

"I honour these people in there," she said. "They're making an important statement for the 99 per cent."

In a separate protest, about 250 demonstrators assembled in front of the State Building on Golden Gate Avenue for about 90 minutes. Elsewhere, students and anti-Wall Street activists settled into a new encampment at the University of California, Berkeley, and visited the state Capitol to demand the restoration of funding for higher education.

At Berkeley, police watched over about two dozen tents that were pitched on Tuesday night on a student plaza despite a campus policy that forbids camping. Police warned that protesters could be arrested if they didn't leave.

Seth Weinberg, a 20-year-old cognitive science major, said he slept in a tent on Sproul Plaza to press the university to lobby for more public education funding.

"There should be a way for anyone who wants to go to college if they choose to," Weinberg said. "What the university doesn't understand is that we are not camping out. This is a constant protest."

In Sacramento, about 75 student leaders and a few administrators from UC Berkeley and the University of California Davis, lobbied lawmakers and the governor to allocate more money to education.

Adam Thongsavat, student body president at UC Davis, called on lawmakers to be "more courageous, more aggressive and more thoughtful".

"Come to our campuses and see how your actions affect us," he said. "I want you all to tell us why prisons deserve more spending than universities."