Police start arresting protesters in Ottawa

Police began arresting protesters Friday in a bid to break the threeweek siege of Canadarsquos capital by truckers angry over the countryrsquos COVID19 restrictionsSome protesters surrendered and were taken into custody police said Some were seen being led away in handcuffsPolice made their first move to take break up the trafficsnarling occupation late Thursday with the arrest of two protest leaders They also sealed off much of the downtown area to outsiders to prevent them from coming to the aid of the selfstyled Freedom Convoy protestersThe capital represented the movementrsquos last stronghold after three weeks of demonstrations and blockades that shut down border crossings into the US caused economic damage to both countries and created a political crisis for Canadian Prime Minister Justin TrudeauOver the past weeks authorities had hesitated to move against many of the protesters around the country in part for fear of violence The demonstrations have drawn rightwing extremists and veterans some of them armedOttawa police made it clear on Thursday they were preparing to end the protest and remove the more than 300 trucks with Ottawarsquos interim police chief warning ldquoAction is imminentrdquo Washington state to lift indoor mask mandateWashingtonrsquos statewide indoor mask mandate one of the few left in the US will lift in most places on March 21 including at schools and child care facilities Gov Jay Inslee said Thursday And starting on March 1 vaccine verification or proof of a negative COVID19 test will no longer be required for attendance at large events2023138 No of new cases reported globally in the past 24 hours416614051 Total no of cases worldwide5844097 Total no of deaths worldwideS Korea keeps crowd limitsSouth Korea will extend restaurant dining hours but maintain a sixperson limit on private social gatherings as it wrestles with a massive coronavirus wave driven by the highly infectious omicron variant The 109831 new cases reported on Friday was another record and about a 25fold increase from the levels seen in midJanuary when omicron became the countryrsquos dominant strain The more than 516000 infections counted in the past seven days alone raised South Korearsquos caseload to over 175 million Cases are growing much faster than when the Delta variant struck the countryThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever