New state laws for the new year: California limits gun rights, minimum wages increase

Several new state laws are set to take effect on New Year's Day, including unprecedented minimum wage hikes, equal pay requirements and new abortion statutes -- and in California, the legislation will curb gun rights, reduce criminal sentences and force publicly held corporations to elevate women to senior positions.

While the federal minimum wage remains $7.25 per hour, Seattle's largest companies will have to start paying $16 an hour on Tuesday, after lawmakers brushed aside studies showing that the city's ongoing minimum wage hikes are actually hurting the low-income workers they aim to help. Many New York City businesses, meanwhile, will have to begin paying at least $15 per hour this week. 

One new Illinois law will extend the current 72-hour waiting period for purchasing handguns to all firearms; another will allow relatives or law officers to ask courts to remove guns from people believed to be a danger to themselves or others.

California, which already bars people younger than 21 from buying handguns, will extend that to long guns with a few exceptions for military members and licensed hunters.