The universe that Stephen Hawking spent a lifetime studying now knows his voice.

Following Hawking’s death in March, the renowned British physicist, who had battled a debilitating degenerative motor neuron disease for decades, was remembered at a memorial service Friday at Westminster Abbey. His ashes were buried between Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton in a corner that honors some of Britain’s greatest scientists and later covered with a gravestone — etched with an equation he used to teach the world about black holes.

But at the same time his ashes were lowered into the ground, his voice was beamed from Earth thousands of light-years away toward the nearest known black hole in the universe.

Family members, friends, fellow scientists and celebrities gathered Friday afternoon at Hawking’s memorial service in London.

Guests also included 1,000 members of the public selected by ballot from 25,000 applicants. A private funeral service was held in March.

The equation on the gravestone was one he used to theorize that black holes are not completely black but faintly leak thermal radiation. That equation accompanied a depiction of a black hole along with the words, “Here lies what was mortal of Stephen Hawking, 1942-2018.”

Greek composer Vangelis — most famous for his Academy Award-winning score to “Chariots of Fire” — set Hawking’s voice to an original piece of music, which was sent into space through a massive antenna at European Space Agency’s ground station in Spain.

Afghan official: U.S. drone strike kills Pakistan Taliban chief

KABUL, Afghanistan — A U.S. drone strike in northeastern Kunar province killed Pakistan Taliban chief Mullah Fazlullah, the insurgent leader who ordered the assassination of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, an Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman said Friday.

Mohammad Radmanish said Fazlullah and two other insurgents were killed early Thursday, just hours before Afghanistan’s Taliban began a three-day cease-fire to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. The three-day holiday follows the end of Islam’s holy month of Ramadan when devout adherents fast from sunrise to sunset.

It was Yousafzai’s open call for girls’ education and criticism of the Taliban that infuriated Fazlullah.

She was just 14 when she survived the assassination attempt in 2012.

U.S. said to be poised to quit U.N. Human Rights Council

GENEVA — The United States is about to quit the United Nation’s main human rights body, primarily over Washington’s claim that the Human Rights Council is biased against Israel, a Western and a U.S. diplomat say.

The move would be the Trump administration’s latest snub of the international community. The State Department said Friday no decision has been made to leave.

But diplomats who requested anonymity said it appears more a matter of when, not if, the pullout threatened last year by the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, will happen.

Never in the 12 years of the Human Rights Council, which is tasked with spotlighting and approving investigations of suspected rights abuses, has a serving member dropped out voluntarily.

Neighbor sentenced to 30 days for assaulting Sen. Rand Paul

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Sen. Rand Paul’s neighbor was sentenced Friday to 30 days in prison for tackling the lawmaker while he was out doing yard work at his Kentucky home.

Paul, who suffered broken ribs, had hoped for a harsher penalty. He said in a statement that the 21 months in prison sought by prosecutors “would have been the appropriate punishment.”

Rene Boucher, 60, a retired physician, pleaded guilty in March to assaulting a member of Congress in the Nov. 3 attack. Boucher said he was triggered by Paul repeatedly stacking debris near their property line in Bowling Green and “lost his temper.”

U.S. District Judge Marianne Battani surmised the attack to be a “dispute between neighbors” and an “isolated incident,” not motivated by politics.

Theranos CEO is charged with criminal fraud

Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the once-heralded blood-testing start-up Theranos, and her former chief operating officer, Ramesh Balwani, were indicted by a federal grand jury on nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the Department of Justice announced Friday.

The start-up promised to disrupt medicine by selling, quick, cheap blood tests directly to consumers. But a Wall Street Journal investigation found that Theranos’ technology was a fraud, and that the company used routine blood-testing equipment for the vast majority of its tests.

Holmes — once considered a wunderkind of Silicon Valley — had already settled fraud charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission, agreeing to a $500,000 penalty and a 10-year ban on working as an officer of a public company.

Italy, France seek changes to EU rules

on migration

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte agreed Friday to work together to pursue changes to the European Union’s migration rules, finding common ground after the issue created a rift between their countries.

The two leaders said during a joint news conference that EU regulations requiring asylum-seekers to apply in the first country they enter and remain there while their cases are processed were not working.

Macron said the policy and others have left Italy, usually the first nation reached on the migration route across the Mediterranean Sea from Africa, without the support that is supposed to be a benefit of a united Europe.

They also urged beefing up Europe’s borders to prevent illegal immigration.

Tropical Storm Carlotta formed in the Pacific Ocean near Mexico’s Acapulco on Friday while the former Hurricane Bud weakened to a tropical depression after passing over the Baja Peninsula.

Carlotta, the third named storm of the Pacific hurricane season, was forecast to make landfall Saturday.

Peggy Whitson, NASA’s record-breaking astronaut, retired Friday less than a year after returning from her last and longest spaceflight. She’s spent more time off the planet than any other American: 665 days over three space station missions. Whitson was also the first woman to command the International Space Station.