If you're a senior on Medicare — or an adult child responsible for a senior on Medicare — here's something you should know: The annual "open enrollment" period for joining or changing prescription drug or private health plans is already under way.

"It's much earlier this year. It started on Oct. 15, and it's going to stop on Dec. 7," says Nancy Metcalf, a senior editor and health expert at Consumer Reports. "So you have your window right now."

Alabama farmers are facing a labor crisis because of the state's new immigration law as both legal and undocumented migrant workers have fled the state since the strict new rules went into effect last month.

So far, piecemeal efforts to match the unemployed or work release inmates to farm jobs are not panning out, and farmers are asking state lawmakers to do something before the spring planting season.

President Obama is on a campaign swing through the West this week, making stops in California, Nevada and Colorado — all states where Hispanic voters will play a pivotal role in next year's election.

Obama has lost popularity with Latinos recently, mostly due to the economy. But Hispanic voters looking for alternatives find problems with the Republican slate as well.

GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain recently said he'd "electrify" the U.S.-Mexico border fence "with a sign on it on the other side that says it can kill you."

Home prices across the U.S. have dropped 30 percent from their peaks, a downturn that has sapped trillions of dollars in wealth from Americans. Not surprisingly, it's a hot topic for presidential candidates this campaign season. But so far, new ideas about how to fix the crisis have been scarce.

On Monday, President Obama is visiting Nevada, where he's expected to announce his administration's latest proposals on housing. The state is at the epicenter of the downturn, with the latest reports showing home prices and sales numbers continuing to slip.

Rescue workers in eastern Turkey pulled a handful of survivors Monday from the rubble of Sunday's powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake, which killed at least 270 people and injured hundreds more.

As aftershocks continued to rock the area, four people in worst-hit Ercis were extracted from the mounds of debris left by Sunday's quake. Dozens more were thought trapped but still alive.

Tunisians proud of sparking the Arab Spring are now celebrating another first in this long revolutionary season: a free and fair election. After decades of dictatorship, Tunisians happily waited in long lines to cast their votes for a national assembly that will rewrite the country's constitution. Election officials say in some areas the turnout was 90 percent.

The ragtag militias that overran Moammar Gadhafi's hometown in Libya included at least one American: 29-year-old Kevin Dawes of San Diego. Dawes says he first went to Libya as a medical aid worker in June, but at the end of the summer, he decided to take up arms after pro-Gadhafi forces started targeting medical staff.

Libya's liberation was declared over the weekend, and residents of Sirte, Moammar Gadhafi's battered hometown, are beginning to return to their homes.