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Jay-Z Keeps It Legal, Selling Nets Share and Visiting Cuba With a License

Jay-Z, Beyonce

Jay-Z’s legally questionable past is a matter of record, but in two recent high-profile situations, he’s staying on the up-and-up.

First, he’s looking to sell his stake in the Brooklyn Nets. As Yahoo! Sports reports, citing unnamed sources, he’s making the move so he can expand his sports-agency business into the NBA. League rules prohibit agents from owning a piece of a team. Jay-Z’s recently launched Roc Nation Sports has already made a mark in baseball, signing up the New York Yankees’ Robinson Cano.

Separately, U.S. officials have cleared Jay-Z and Beyoncé amid questions about whether their recent trip to Cuba was legal. As the New York Times reports, the Treasury Department issued a statement yesterday saying the couple’s visit was fully licensed. The office of Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida), one of two South Florida lawmakers challenging the trip, didn’t immediately return the Times‘ request for comment.

It’s unlikely that the legality of Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s trip means we’ll have to stop hearing about it. For one thing, they’re celebrities and the story doesn’t have much effect on anyone, so it’s easy for the talking heads to, well, talk about. For another, this debate was never about them anyway. Ros-Lehtinen opposed a visit by Nelson Mandela to her state, so she hasn’t always disliked oppressive regimes when they’re not Cuba. Chutzpah alert: That didn’t stop her fellow Republican questioning the trip, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, from saying of the Carter family’s Cuba jaunt, “It’s like going to South Africa during apartheid and not call for the release of Nelson Mandela.”