Morning Splash: Netflix Apologizes, Announces Split Into 2 Businesses; Body Discovered in Search for Michelle Le to Undergo DNA Tests

In a letter posted on the Netflix Web site late Sunday night, the company’s chief executive, Reed Hastings, apologized for the way he handled recent changes in pricing and subscription services, and announced that the company would split into two businesses, with the DVD-by-mail service to be renamed Qwikster. The pricing changes were announced this past summer and have since caused Netflix customers to walk away in droves. “I messed up,” Mr. Hastings said. “I owe everyone an explanation.”

A body found Saturday during the search for missing San Mateo resident Michelle Le won't be identified for about a week, officials said Sunday. Le, 26, went missing on May 27 when she took a break from her nursing classes in Hayward. Giselle Esteban, 27, was arrested on suspicion of her murder on Sept. 7 and has been suspected of being angry with Le over a love triangle. A Hayward police officer found a body in some brush near a remote ranch home near the Sunol-Pleasanton border. It was badly decomposed, and investigators had not even determined Sunday whether it was a man or a woman, Alameda County Sheriff's Office spokesman Sgt. J.D. Nelson said...

A push to adopt a more moderate California Republican Party platform was defeated Sunday in the final hours of the party's fall convention in Los Angeles. The proposed language, which downplayed traditional GOP positions on gun rights, abortion and same-sex marriage, had come under fire from conservatives.

...New state law pushes the handling and housing of most wayward parolees to local government, along with a host of new prisoners convicted of nonviolent felonies who will not set foot inside a state prison. Most of the parolees will remain in local communities, serving 60- or 90-day jail terms instead of the average four-month prison term with the state. Counties across California are grappling with the logistics of the law, and rue the lack of state dollars to pay for expanding their jail systems, probation departments and rehabilitation services. State funding so far only covers the most basic expansion for hundreds of prisoners and parolees traditionally served by the state and now expected to join the county system.

An art installation for the Central Subway was put on hold Friday in light of the news that the sculptor for the project shot a dog for a film. Tom Otterness, a Brooklyn artist who has created public sculptures throughout the nation and world, garnered notoriety in 1977 for his avant-garde movie "Shot Dog Film," in which he fatally shot a dog adopted from an animal shelter. He has since apologized for the act.

Like a patient out of intensive care yet still suffering aches, pains and the need for a lot of rehabilitation, San Francisco Bay is on the mend but far from enjoying a clean bill of health. That's the conclusion of a new report released Monday by a team of scientists studying Northern California's signature natural feature and a broad range of its issues -- from wetlands to wildlife, toxic pollution to trail access.

BART's new general manager, Grace Crunican, is reaching out to meet with just about everyone - including protesters who have been wreaking havoc on the system for the past two months...In fact, she said her assistant has started to contact interested parties such as the ACLU in hopes of arranging a meeting where they can air whatever grievances they might have.

Library support groups in Marin are successfully chasing away a private business that invites people to "donate" their used books by putting them in large, blue metal bins outside local markets and other large stores. Both Andronico's and Safeway have asked that the bins be removed from outside their stores and other Marin stores are re-evaluating. A bin that had been placed in the parking lot where the new Good Earth store plans to open in Fairfax has been removed.