9 Stories You Should Know About Today: Monday, Jan. 12

Mental health clinicians at Kaiser are walking off the job Monday, commencing a weeklong, statewide strike. Their main complaint: Kaiser isn’t hiring enough therapists and psychologists to see patients in a timely manner. But the strike also comes after four years of contract negotiations between Kaiser and the National Union of Healthcare Workers have yielded few agreements. Full story

Authorities said Yalani Chinyamurindi, 19, of San Francisco; Harith Atchan, 21, of San Francisco; Manuel O’Neal, 22, of San Francisco; and David Saucier, 20, of Antioch, were sitting in a stolen car when all four were shot and killed. Police said the slayings were likely gang-related. No suspects have been identified or arrested. Full story

A collision involving four vehicles at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge Monday morning had nothing to do with the bridge’s new movable barrier, according to the CHP. Full story

Scratch one name off the list of potential successors to Sen. Barbara Boxer. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, in a message posted on his Facebook page Monday morning, said he won't be a candidate to replace the retiring Boxer in 2016. "It's always better to be candid than coy," wrote Newsom. "I know that my head and my heart, my young family's future, and our unfinished work all remain firmly in the state of California." Full story

The North Coast’s new state senator has vowed to press for more money for California’s state parks, warning that Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed budget released Friday threatens public access and the long-term financial health of the 279-park system. “This budget does not get the public back onto their lands,” Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, said Friday. “We are threatening the long-term existence of our beloved state parks.” Full story

Coast Dairies, a 5,843-acre expanse of rolling hills, redwood forests and scenic trails that stretches for six miles along the coast north coast of Santa Cruz, was preserved from development in 1998 when environmentalists purchased the land with roughly $40 million from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Now Bay Area conservation groups want to raise its profile. They are launching an effort to have President Obama declare the property a new national monument this year. Full story

Stand outside of Shirley Moore’s front door and you can see Candlestick Park – easily. The empty stadium is about 300 feet away. Any decent outfielder could throw a baseball and hit the side of the structure. If Lennar Corp has its way, someday this spring, a contractor will install several thousand explosive devices below the upper deck of the ballpark and throw the switch. The blast will cause the top sections of Candlestick to collapse in a dramatic implosion. And Moore fears her house, her neighborhood, a nearby playground, a school, a new condo development and potentially other parts of the Bayview neighborhood could be enveloped in a cloud of concrete dust. Full story

Twenty years ago, scores of trees began visibly dying off around the Bay Area, in what turned out to be the advent of Sudden Oak Death. The cause was a microscopic parasite, Phytophthora ramorum. An ominous federal report five years ago warned of another Phytophthora species that had not arrived yet in North America. If it were to appear, the report said it “would likely cause severe economic impacts to the nursery trade, as well as environmental impacts on native species.” Then in the fall of 2012, it showed up at a nursery in Monterey County. Full story

Ross Ulbricht is finally getting his day in court, 15 months after plainclothes FBI agents grabbed him in the science fiction section of a San Francisco library and accused him of running the billion-dollar online drug bazaar known as the Silk Road. It’s a day that anyone who cares about crime, punishment and privacy in the shadows of the internet will be watching. Full story

A debate between reader and the Merc's Gary "Mr. Roadshow" Richards over the use of the definite article before local freeway numbers. Full story

Browsing around an extensive library of sports books, I recently came across some telling insights into Steve Kerr’s character. They are packaged within a single work, John Feinstein’s “A Season Inside.” Although I highly recommend the book as a whole, focus here on the highlights as they relate to the Warriors’ intriguing coach. Feinstein’s initial fascination was one shared by many: Kerr’s emotional recovery from the assassination of his father, the president of the American University in Beirut. Full story