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The only Canadian on death row in the United States is in the Montana State Prison, about an hour and a half southeast of Missoula. After almost three decades, he is asking the governor of Montana for mercy. The request for clemency is the last chance Alberta native Ronald Allen Smith has of avoiding execution.

"I've been here for 29 years," says Smith, who has spent more of his life inside the state's maximum security block than he has spent outside of it. He has tried to think about his crime as little as possible.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — the health care overhaul law that President Obama championed and Republicans rejected — turns two on Friday.

The law is headed to the Supreme Court on Monday, where the Justices begin hearing three days of arguments about the constitutionality of the law. Ahead of the big day, we asked for questions from our audiences online and on air. Here's a sampling of questions, edited for clarity and length, and the answers.

The Los Angeles County coroner's office is saying that pop star Whitney Houston drowned in her hotel room tub on Feb. 11.

USA Today reports the coroners listed the cause of death as: "drowning and effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use."

They add:

Hungry for a good dystopia? Well, as you may be gathering from reports of the millions of tickets sold before prints were even shipped to theaters, author Suzanne Collins has a feast for you in the first movie installment of her young-adult trilogy The Hunger Games.

In the aftermath of the "take this job and shove it" scandal, Goldman Sachs has embarked on a muppet hunt.

As the Supreme Court gets ready to hear arguments about President Obama's health care law, supporters and opponents are planning a flurry of rallies, press conferences and phone banks to remind people why the law is so great — or so terrible. Republicans have been energized by their desire to see the law repealed, but the issue could be more complicated for the GOP than it seems.

Troubled when your creme won't brulee at 3 a.m.? Food52 Hotline can help.

The 24-hour, cooking advice Twitter feed is the brainchild of Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, two veteran New York food writers and editors who founded the site Food52.com.

The site focuses on crowdsourcing recipes and food news, so it makes sense that they would want to crowdsource cooking advice, too.

The Senate passed a bill Thursday to explicitly ban insider trading by members of Congress and the executive branch, and that means the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act is headed to the president's desk.

But this STOCK Act is quite a bit weaker than earlier versions.

The STOCK Act has been on a glide path ever since an explosive 60 Minutes story last fall highlighted the issue of members of Congress apparently profiting on nonpublic information.

There's a movie freshly out this weekend — perhaps you've heard of it.

The Hunger Games?

On Friday's Morning Edition, director Gary Ross and star Jennifer Lawrence talk to NPR's David Greene about the film.

Saying his role as police chief has "become a distraction," Bill Lee Jr. announced he was stepping down temporarily.

The Sanford, Fla. police chief has been under fire for the way he has handled the investigation surrounding the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Martin, who was unarmed, was shot by a a 28-year-old man, George Zimmerman, who claimed self defense.

During a news conference, today, Lee said that he stands by his police department, its personnel and the investigation that was conducted, but he was stepping down to "restore a semblance of calm to the city."

Etch A Sketch. Those three little words may become more of a bane to Mitt Romney's campaign than, say, Bain Capital.

As Romney's longtime aide, Eric Fehrnstrom, has learned to his chagrin, those three small words can make a very big difference.

Earlier this month, Fehrnstrom actually made a statement very similar in kind if not wording to what he said Wednesday on CNN.

We don't usually dabble in arts news, but we thought we'd pass along this piece of news from California, home to 13.7 million Latinos.

Gov. Edmund Brown has appointed Juan Felipe Herrera as California's Poet Laureate. Herrera, 63, becomes the first Latino to be appointed to the position, which requires senate confirmation.

Here's how Brown's office described Herrera in its press release:

"On his 2,466th night in the wilderness," the hunt for Malcolm Naden ended.

And when it did, Australia's most wanted man seemed relieved, police said afterward, according to The Sydney Morning Herald:

"Sitting on the sodden ground in handcuffs, surrounded by his captors, a lucid and relaxed Mr Naden said: 'Thank God it's over, I've had enough.' "

Robert Siegel speaks with James Varney, a sports reporter for the Times-Picayune, about recent sanctions against the New Orleans Saints and what it means for the fans, players, and the NFL.

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It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.

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Two entrepreneurs who changed American breakfasts have died. Robert Siegel talks about Sam Glazer, a co-founder of the Mr. Coffee company and Murray Lender, who helped make Lender's Bagels a household name.

If your OB-GYN doesn't ask you about your sex life, who will?

That's the question that comes to mind on reading about a new survey of the women's health specialists and what they don't talk about with their patients.

Most gynecologists did ask a patient if she was sexually active. A measly 14 percent asked about sexual activity and pleasure. Only 28 percent asked about a patient's sexual orientation. Yet one-quarter of the doctors say they had expressed disapproval of their patients' sexual practices.

Last week, we reported that the U.S Department of Agriculture decided it would give school food administrators alternatives to meat containing lean finely textured beef, also known as LFTB, or "pink slime" by its detractors.

Now, Wal-Mart has become the latest food retailer to announce that it's making changes after listening to customer concerns about LFTB.

There is good news to report on Fabrice Muamba, the soccer player in Britain who went into cardiac arrest during a big game last Saturday in London.

Muamba, a 23-year-old from Congo, collapsed on the field as his team, Bolton, was playing English Premier League rival Tottenham. The Bolton club doctor, Jonathan Tobin, says the stricken player failed to respond to multiple defibrillator shocks, and that 78 minutes elapsed before Muamba's heart started beating on its own again.

With Florida's "stand your ground law" in the spotlight, we want to point to a decision taken yesterday by a Miami-Dade county judge in the case of Greyston Garcia, who was facing second-degree murder charges.

Here's what we know about the case, according to The Miami Herald:

"I'm very sorry about Tyler," Dharun Ravi, the former Rutgers student convicted of a crime for spying on his roommate, tells The New Jersey Star-Ledger this morning. "I have parents and a little brother, and I can only try to imagine how they feel. But I want the Clementis to know I had no problem with their son. I didn't hate Tyler and I knew he was okay with me. I wanted to talk to his parents, but I was afraid. I didn't know what to say."

A couple of really rich guys have decided to give even more money to health causes they care about deeply.

New York Mayor, media magnate and public health zealot Michael Bloomberg said he will give $220 million to fight smoking in the developing world. Bloomberg's charitable foundation has targeted tobacco use.

And the latest chunk of money, which is part of a four-year commitment, will bring Bloomberg Philanthropies' support of anti-smoking efforts around the globe to more than $600 million.

Things were not quiet again in Clintonville, Wis., early today.

As we reported Wednesday, folks there have been hearing booms and feeling vibrations this week and no one has yet been able to explain what's causing them. One of the latest theories is that unusually warm temperatures are causing underground ice to crack. A few homeowners think they've suffered some damages (cracked floors, for example).

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear challenges to the Affordable Care Act. In the first of a series of conversations about the case, host Michel Martin sits down with Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute. Cannon opposes the law and his group has filed four briefs with the high court, arguing that key parts of the measure are unconstitutional.

At 54, Don Verrilli Jr. stands tall and calm in the Supreme Court chamber, his salt and pepper mustache the only thing about him that bristles. His deep, baritone voice suggests to the justices that he is the essence of reasonableness. There are no histrionics. Indeed, if he gets backed into a corner, his voice just gets deeper. Only the occasional, needless throat-clearing betrays any nerves at all.

A New Hampshire man who claimed last year that for a fee of $135 he would arrange to have your dog walked if the Rapture did indeed begin last May 21 and you got taken up to heaven, is now saying that his business venture was a hoax.