At the prodding of business organizations, House Republicans quietly secured a recent change in President Barack Obama's health law to expand coverage choices, a striking, one-of-a-kind departure from dozens of high-decibel attempts to repeal or dismember it.

Madeline Schwartzman’s mission is connect people in what she sees as an increasingly individualized society. Every day as she travels by subway Madeline asks fellow commuters to write a poem in her notebook. Some refuse, some accept, and now more…