California voters approved a sweeping change to sentencing on Tuesday by passing Proposition 47 and knocking most drug possession and "petty theft" charges down from felonies to a misdemeanors. Only months earlier, Governor Jerry Brown vetoed similar, and more modest, changes to California's sentencing laws, claiming that the state's plan to "realign" convicts from state prisons to county jails required more time to fully take effect. [read the full story here]