Photo by Susan Catherine via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr

• Best known for his authoring of "2001: A Space Odyssey," sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke has died at 90 in Sri Lanka.
• This just in from the LA Times's Soundboard blog...Prince has been added to the Coachella roster! Nice!
• Obama had a huge campaign moment this morning, perhaps the biggest yet: he confronted the race issue in a stirring speech after his pastor's anti-American sermons went spaz all over the internet.
• More sad obit news: Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella of "The English Patient," "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Cold Mountain" fame died at the age of 54 today in London due to a hemorrhage following surgery.
• Good news for Ventura County commuters! Highway 23 between Moorpark and Thousand Oaks has been finished, shaving off 15 to 20 minutes of drive time one-way
• After last week's random freeway shooting death of a woman, and despite a public outcry for cameras on freeways, the verdict is "only a test project has been completed and officials have yet to pursue funding for the program."
• Former LA Times rock critic Robert Hilburn has signed a deal to release a memoir of his many adventures in rock n' roll. Slavish praise of Bruce Springsteen's entire oeuvre will no doubt make up the bulk of the work.
• Bad headline for the mouse: Disney bus bursts into flames in Cerritos. But good news for Disney: they're opening up a new interactive ride based on Toy Story!

Zach Behrens also contributed to this report.