Thursday night's debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan takes on new significance with the race remaining a tight one following last week's debate between President Obama and Gov. Romney. Meanwhile former President Clinton was in California to stump for Democratic congressional candidates and President Obama made a fundraising stop in San Francisco.

For the first time in more than thirty years, Californians will decide whether to abolish the death penalty, replacing it with life imprisonment without parole. Proposition 34 advocates say repealing the penalty will save the state $100 million annually in the first few years. Proposition 36 would revise the state's harsh three strikes law to impose a life sentence only when a new felony conviction is serious or violent.

San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi returned to work on Wednesday after a nearly nine-hour hearing Tuesday and a vote by four members of the Board of Supervisors to reinstate him. Mirkarimi was suspended without pay by Mayor Ed Lee for official misconduct after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor count of false imprisonment stemming from an altercation with his wife, Eliana Lopez. District Attorney George Gascon has called for the sheriff to forfeit oversight of issues related to domestic abuse in the department and efforts to recall him are already underway.