While you’ve been Googling “gym near me” and “crochet tools beginner” to get a jumpstart on your resolutions, US states ushered in a bunch of new laws in the New Year that affect everything from private internet time to shoplifting.

Disappearing porn. Most of the South started its own version of dry January this month. Beginning on Wednesday, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina joined the growing list of 14 other states where residents can no longer access popular porn sites due to age verification laws.

• Aylo network—which owns PornHub and Brazzers—decided to block users in those states since the laws hold online content publishers liable for fines and private lawsuits if they don’t “perform reasonable age verification methods,” which the states argue protect minors.
• But adult content companies, free speech advocates, and digital privacy experts say the laws aren’t doing much to protect anyone and instead push users to more dangerous places on the internet.
• SCOTUS will hear oral arguments in Aylo’s fight against Texas’s age verification law this month.

Minimum wage bump. More than 9.2 million workers in 21 states will see their paychecks increase without even having to sit through a year-end review. The minimum wage in those states jumped between 18 cents and $1.75, depending on location.

• This past year saw the largest bump in minimum wages in recent US history.
• California elicited fears of $45 cheeseburgers when it instituted a $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers in April, but early research shows few negative effects for businesses.

What else is on the books? Illinois gyms must allow memberships to be canceled either by email or on their websites. California beefed up laws cracking down on retail crime and gave child influencers some of the same financial protections as child actors. Minnesota adopted ticketing transparency, while five states adopted pay transparency laws. And kids under 14 in Florida cannot have social media. Expect some pushback on that one.—MM

Tesla’s annual sales fell for the first time in more than a decade. Rare bad news for Adrian Dittmann Elon Musk: Tesla’s global EV sales last year fell 1.1% from 2024—the company’s first year over year decline since 2011, the Associated Press reported. That sent the stock tumbling yesterday, marking a rough day for the automaker that had soared since Donald Trump won the presidential election and convinced investors he’d be friendly to Musk’s policy priorities. Meanwhile, BYD is coming for Tesla’s EV crown: The Chinese company posted record sales in December and continues to gain on Tesla’s market share lead despite not being available in the US.

Meta replaced its policy chief. Nick Clegg, the former British politician who’s served a key role as the head of Meta’s global policy team since 2018, is leaving the social media giant, Semafor reported. In his place, Meta is appointing Joel Kaplan, the former White House deputy chief of staff under George W. Bush and Meta’s highest-profile Republican. Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg have embraced President-elect Trump in recent weeks, hoping to curry favor in a soon-to-be Republican-dominated Washington. Clegg was known for supporting the company’s former progressive policies, including a stronger approach to content moderation.

📒 Short-seller firm accused Carvana of “grift for the ages.” Hindenburg Research, the short seller that recently uncovered alleged accounting manipulation at Super Micro, is now accusing used car retailer Carvana of malpractice. Per Bloomberg, Hindenburg shorted Carvana’s stock and published research showing that the company allegedly uses questionable financial tactics to hide the true risks of its loan portfolio from investors. Carvana’s stock skyrocketed 284% last year, netting CEO Ernest Garcia III and his father, a majority shareholder, billions in profits.—AE

Kicking off the year that it was expected to go public, Turo, an Airbnb-like car-sharing service, confirmed this week that two New Year’s Day incidents, one in New Orleans and the other in Las Vegas, involved vehicles rented through its app.

It’s a “coincidence,” Vegas officials said. The FBI said it hasn’t found any links between the incidents yet, but the agency is investigating both as possible acts of terrorism. According to authorities:

• Army servicemember Matthew Alan Livelsberger used fireworks and fuel cans to blow up a Cybertruck he got through Turo outside of the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas lobby on Wednesday morning.
• That explosion happened hours after US Army veteran Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar drove a rented Ford pickup truck through a New Orleans crowd, killing 14 and injuring dozens.

That’s my car. After recognizing his vehicle on the news, the owner of the truck used in the New Orleans attack told the New York Times that he plans to stop using Turo—the largest car-sharing app in the US, on which he had four other cars listed—to make extra money. About 150,000 people have rented out their vehicles on Turo over the past year, according to a company filing.

On trust and safety, the company said neither driver had anything in their backgrounds that would’ve raised alarms during the app’s screening process. Jabbar had two prior arrests in 2002 and 2005: one for misdemeanor theft and the other for driving with an invalid license, Business Insider reported.—ML

It’s easy to hear about cruise ship passengers experiencing vomiting and diarrhea and think, “Isn’t that every cruise?” But the gastrointestinal problems reported last month go beyond the inevitable outcome of a questionable buffet and choppy seas.

In December, nearly 900 passengers and crew members across five outbreaks were afflicted with norovirus, which is known as the “two-bucket disease.” The rise in maritime illnesses that’s redefining the term “poop deck” aligns with what’s happening on dry land—the CDC reported 91 norovirus cases during the week of Dec. 5, the highest number over that period in several years.

The number is likely much higher, as states are not required to report individual norovirus cases to the CDC.

“The perfect human pathogens.” Noroviruses spread more easily in the winter months through physical contact with an infected person or contaminated surfaces and foods, especially shellfish. They are nearly impervious to hand sanitizer, making soap and water the best deterrent. Be sure to get your electrolytes, as all that bucket filling can cause severe dehydration. Most people make full recoveries after a few painful days.—DL

Oppenheimer, we hardly knew ye. After a 2023 that signaled Americans were willing to go to theaters to see original movies again, the box office came down with a bad case of sequelitis in 2024. Nine of the 10 highest-grossing movies in the US last year were sequels, the New York Times reported. The 10th was Wicked, which is technically not a sequel, but rather an adaptation of a Broadway play, which itself is based on a book that’s based on another book that inspired The Wizard of Oz.

Films like Inside Out 2, Deadpool & Wolverine, and Dune: Part Two fueled a sturdy year for the US box office, which raked in $8.75 billion—only a 3% drop from 2023 despite the impact of two debilitating Hollywood strikes. This year looks like more of the same, with new installments in the Jurassic World, Mission: Impossible, and Avatar franchises expected to help stabilize a film industry still reeling from the effects of the Covid pandemic. If we’re lucky, we might even get Oppenheimer 2: Oppenheimerer.—AE

There’s no quiz this week, as Balthazar the Question Gremlin is still on vacation in Cabo. We’ll be back with the Brew’s usual weekly news quiz next Friday.