New laws taking effect Friday in Tennessee will:
— Enact the state's $30.78 billion annual spending plan.
— Authorize a cyber-based public charter school that provides educational resources to students by way of the Internet in a "virtual" classroom setting.
— Allow employees to vote by secret ballot on whether or not they want to unionize.
— Allow an injured employee to collect unemployment where the employee loses his or her job due to a disability resulting from the work-related injury.
— Require anyone who claims to be a sports agent to register with the Secretary of State. Failure to do so could result in a penalty of as much as $25,000 and up to six years in prison.
— Prohibit an individual convicted of a felony for possession, use, or distribution of a controlled substance from being eligible to receive welfare benefits.
— Eliminate pretrial diversion for the most dangerous criminals in the state.
— Authorize judges to allow a district attorney to use a wiretap when the interception may provide evidence of criminal gang-related activities in aggravated burglaries.
— Add juveniles convicted of the most violent sexual offenses to the state's sex offender registry.
— Allow law enforcement to immediately put out information about suspects when a police officer is missing, injured or killed in the line of duty.
— Increase from three to five years the minimum time period a driver's license may be revoked for a third DUI offense.
— Measure allow companies to advertise on the state Department of Transportation's emergency trucks and 511 help phone line.
— Continue the hospital assessment adopted last year to prevent cuts to state hospitals.
— Add vehicles transporting certain organs for human transplantation to the current list of those authorized to display amber and white lights.
— Change the state's presidential preference primary date to the first Tuesday in March.
— Prohibit an operator from stripping rock from property without a permit from the state's commissioner of environment and conservation.