David DeMille

ddemille@thespectrum.com

ST. GEORGE – With St. George City in the process of finalizing a written set of ordinances regulating the city's ambulance service, employees with private provider Gold Cross Ambulance have unionized in an effort to improve pay and work conditions.

Citing a lack of facilities available to the company's 20-plus paramedics and Emergency Medical Technicians working in the St. George area, as well as pay starting as low as $11 per hour for paramedics, employees approached the Utah Teamsters about organizing earlier this year, said Spencer Hogue, secretary treasurer and business agent with the Teamsters Local 222 in Salt Lake City.

Employees voted to join in September, and the union has already initiated negotiations with Gold Cross management about improving work conditions, Hogue said.

Gold Cross employees, like those atHeavy metal with a political message from Ai Weiwei

The Chinese artist and political campaigner releases a music video for his
heavy metal single Dumbass, which reconstructs the 81 days he spent detained
by the authorities.

9:38AM BST 22 May 2013

Artist and human rights activist Ai Weiweihas released a heavy-metal single called "Dumbass'" - meant to reconstruct his 81-day detention in 2011, which was part of an overall crackdown on dissent by the Chinese government.

With it he has released a music video showing two emotionless prison guards who watch Ai as he eats, sleeps, paces, showers, and even sits on the toilet, much of it metaphor designed to mock state power.

Ai was convicted of tax evasion by China, which his supporters saw as punishment for his activism.

"This is dedicated to all those