james santorum's life has been full of twists and turns. he was arrested after police found large quanties of cocaine and marijuana for sale in his home. his lawyers the former disict attorney who lost his reeleion bid to harris a year after fajita gate. santoro became another big playern another scandal. his drug charges were dropped, along with huneds of others when the crim lab was shut down when a former lab technician admitted stealing cocaine evidence the d.a.'s office says it will refile charges. vick lee, abc 7 news. >> stanford researchers say they're one step closer to finding a cure for hearing lo. abc 7's lisa amean says why stem cells se to be the key. >> reporter: at stanford school of medicine -- >> when we saw this, this was a major point. >> reporter: excitement is buildinground something that's invisible to the naked eye. >> th is beautiful. >> reporter: but could make all the difference in the ear. researchers say these small stem lls could be the key to finding a ce for hearing loss. >> stem cells are widely available an

. >> we are seeing political activity in new hampshire and iowa with rick santorum and mitt romney has been on the campaign trail, governor pawlenty. >> right after the november elections, you will start seeing more movement where people are forming committees and more visits to those early primary states. you know, a lot of it right now is building goodwill and showing you -- what you can do on the campaign trail by fundraising and stumping for candidates and a think a lot of these perspective candidates want to see those efforts come back to help them by endorsements in the future. so, you know, we will see activity and especially with these guys spending a lot of money and helping out some of the candidates in these races. >> will this early start to 2012 have any impact on the obama agenda? we saw the "vanity" fair piece how washington is broken, the cable chatter, web sites, twitter, all of this is coming fast and furious, when you combine that with the early jump on the republican side, does it impact the obama agenda? >> it does. i couldn't agree more with the article. these dai