The TikTok logo is displayed on signage outside TikTok social media app company offices in Culver City, California on September 30, 2025. A new law in Virginia is designed to limit social media use by kids under 16 to one hour a day. It faces a legal challenge.
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
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Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
Here at NPR, we like to ring in the new year by looking at new state laws taking effect on Jan. 1.
This year, states are enacting a slew of laws focused on wages, social media rules, restrictions on gender-affirming care, AI regulation and much more.
Here is a sampling of some of those changes, as reported by public media journalists across the country.
California rideshare drivers can unionize
Under a new law, California’s 800,000 rideshare drivers have the right to unionize starting on Jan. 1. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom brokered the deal between organized labor and major rideshare companies, including Uber and Lyft.
The rideshare giants supported the expansion of collective bargaining rights to their drivers in exchange for lawmakers agreeing to slash the companies’ insurance costs for underinsured drivers.
After Massachusetts voters decided to do so in 2024, California became the second state to extend collective bargaining rights to rideshare drivers.
– Laura Fitzgerald, CapRadio
More paid time off in Colorado for parents of babies in the NICU
Colorado families whose babies spend time in the NICU will be able to take more paid leave this year. Colorado’s paid family leave program already allows workers to take up to 12 weeks off from work…