FIRST OFF . . .

The Treasury Department wants to know: Who picked up the tab for Robert Redford’s trip in May to Cuba? Reports are surfacing that the actor-director may have violated U.S. law during a three-day trip to Cuba, where he attended a Havana script-writing workshop for women. Redford also said at the time that he also met with Cuban President Fidel Castro. The Scripps Howard News Service reported that Richard Newcomb, director of the Treasury enforcement office in Washington, wrote Redford in May and asked him to explain whether he paid his own expenses or whether they were paid by Cuba. (A U.S. trade ban with Cuba bars all unlicensed economic transactions in which Cuba has an interest.) Newcomb declined to comment Thursday when he was contacted at home by the Associated Press. An attorney for Redford is denying that the Treasury action is an investigation and says it’s merely an inquiry, nothing more.