• We know the only certainties in this world are death and taxes, but here in Massachusetts, it’s death, taxes and no taxes. That’s thanks to what is now a permanent sales tax holiday, which will start in 2019, as part of the legislature’s Grand Bargain. But now we’re not just one step closer to having our sales tax holiday, we’re one year closer. Yesterday the House signed off on an amendment that would suspend the state’s sales tax this August, the weekend of the 11th-12th. We opened the lines to ask you: if these sales tax holidays are worth it? Particularly if we can plan our shopping around them?
  • Up next, reefer sadness. Now that recreational marijuana is legal in Massachusetts, why are there no recreational pot shops, cannabis cafes and job postings for bud-tenders to be found? Steve Hoffman, Chairman of the Cannabis Control Commission joins us to explain.
  • Then: President Trump’s upcoming trip to Europe, the latest on the immigration border situation and other national security headlines with security expert Juliette Kayyem.
  • Last week a an accident at the MBTA perfectly illustrated our broken healthcare system, when a woman got her leg wedged between the train and the platform. Her leg was cut to the bone and when people came to her rescue, her first words were a plea to not call the ambulance because it costs too much. Should she be have been concerned about minding the gap? Or minding the GOP as it continues to chip away at the affordable care act? Medical ethicist Art Caplan joined us for that and more.
  • Then, into a dream world by way of the of magical realism of Cirque de Soleil and the dreamscapes on exhibit at the DeCordova Museum: WGBH’s Executive Arts Editor Jared Bowen.
  • Musician Tom Rush joins us to perform songs from his latest album, Voices. He’ll be performing at The Center for Arts in Natick this Friday and Saturday night at 8pm.
  • Caitlin Moran’s new noel, How to be Famous is the sequel to her bestseller How to Build a Girl. It’s part of a coming of age trilogy set in London’s britpop scene, where her protagonist, Johanna Morrigan, takes on a male-dominated industry and the sleazeballs who populate it.
    Caitlin Moran will be at the Brattle Theatre Wednesday night at 6pm in conversation with Meredith Goldstein at an event sponsored by the Harvard Bookstore.

To hear the full show, click on the audio player above.