These new Minnesota laws are now in effect, including expanded car seat requirements, workplace cannabis testing

MINNEAPOLIS — There is a slew of new regulations kicking in on Thursday in Minnesota, from children's car seat usage, to stricter penalties surrounding straw gun purchases.

Here is a list of some of the more notable changes in state law:

Business and commerce

• Cellphone cases and accessories that look like firearms are now banned.
• "Deceptive marketing related to vapor products" is now prohibited.

 Civil law

• Courts are banned from denying adoptions to adults with disabilities.
• Residents with "episodic disabilities" are now ensured disability protections.

Elections

• The list of prohibited information that can be shared about an election official or their family has been expanded, including their personal phone numbers, email addresses, and names and likenesses of their minor children.
• Political parties can only be granted "major party" status by gaining votes from at least 8% of the total vote in elections for statewide offices.

Employment

• Employers can't deactivate group insurance and health care benefits for employees or their dependants on parental or pregnancy leave.
• Employers can now use oral fluid test procedures for drug, cannabis and alcohol use.
• Tips to service workers must be credited to the pay period in which they receive it, and paid out by the next pay period.

Family

• Courts must "consider the best interests of the child and must not prefer one parent over the other solely based on the parent's gender."
• Courts must now "consider credible allegations of domestic abuse, substance abuse, maltreatment findings, or neglect as a reasonable basis for a party who is denied parenting time to the other party."

Public safety

• "Straw purchases" — buying a firearm for someone barred from purchasing or possessing one — is now a felony.
• "Swatting" — the act of making fake emergency calls aimed at sending first responders to the homes of elected officials and others — is also now a felony. 
• All rooms in hotels and lodging houses must have functioning carbon monoxide detectors.

Transportation

• Children can no longer ride in the front seat of a vehicle until they are 13 years old. Children can ride in booster seats at age 4 and remain in them until age 9 unless they reach their car seat's weight and height requirements.
  
• Younger kids will now need to be in rear-facing seats from birth until they are at least 2 years old. 
• "Roadable aircraft," defined as "any aircraft capable of taking off and landing from a suitable airfield and that is designed to be operated on a public highway as a motor vehicle," are now considered motor vehicles. They are also banned from taking off or landing on any public roads except in emergency situations.
  
• Vehicles parked in spaces with expired meters can no longer be towed.