Hands-Free Phones for Drivers Tops Minnesota New Laws List

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Minnesota motorists will be required to use hands-free devices if they want to talk on the phone while driving. Slower drivers must move over to let faster drivers pass.

Groping a person's clothed buttocks without consent will become a crime. And vaping in public indoor spaces and workplaces will become as illegal as cigarette smoking in them.

That's just a sampling of the new laws that become effective Thursday in Minnesota.

In other changes, residents of assisted living homes and their families will now have the right to install hidden monitoring cameras for two weeks before being required to notify the facilities. And certain parents who have lost their parental rights will have a little easier time trying to get them back.