WASHINGTON

Harvard doctor nominated to be next surgeon general

President Obama is nominating a Harvard Medical School physician as the nation’s next surgeon general.

Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy is co-founder and president of Doctors for America, an organization that says its mission is to ensure that everyone has access to affordable, high-quality health care. He also started a nonprofit that focused on HIV/AIDS education in India and the United States.

The surgeon general serves for a four-year term and is the nation’s top spokesperson on public health issues. If confirmed by the Senate, Murthy would replace acting Surgeon General Boris Lushniak.

MIAMI

Pilot reports passenger fell out of plane over ocean

Rescue crews searched an area southeast of Miami after a pilot reported to the Federal Aviation Administration that a passenger fell out of his small plane into the ocean Thursday.

FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen says the call came at 1:30 p.m. Thursday from the pilot of a Piper PA 46 aircraft. The plane was flying at about 2,000 feet when the call came in, she said.

Coast Guard and Miami-Dade Fire Rescue air and water units were searching an area about 8 miles southeast of Tamiami Executive Airport, south of Miami, where the plane safely landed..

PHILADELPHIA

Man arrested after stealing backhoe with intent to sell

A Pennsylvania man has been jailed on charges he stole a $125,000 backhoe from a suburban construction site then drove it about 30 miles to a scrapyard in Philadelphia where he intended to sell it.

Police estimate it would have taken 33-year-old William Michael Pusey about 2 hours to make the trip to Philadelphia from Shainline Excavating of Phoenixville, where the backhoe was stolen Sunday.

State police say the backhoe’s owner was able to locate it because of a global-positioning device in it.

– From news service reports