Lynette Liles and husband Billy Ray Liles outside court.

LESLEY Mascall will not be celebrating her 69th birthday at her home on Sydney’s northern beaches at the end of the month. Along with her husband, 71-year-old Paul Mascall, she has become the latest in a list of small business operators to go to jail after dabbling in the tax evasion waters of Vanuatu in a scheme promoted by their Australian accountant, Lynette Kathleen Liles.

The writing was on the wall that the Mascalls faced a custodial sentence after the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal earlier this year overturned what it considered to be lenient sentences for tax fraud.

Television producers Michael Boughen and Wayne Cameron who, like the Mascalls, were clients of Liles caught up in the Project Wickenby investigation, had pleaded guilty to evading $1.75 million in tax and been given community-based intensive correction orders.

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Plans for the Metreon, at Mission and Fourth streets in S.F., include a street-level apparel store and a second-floor Target.

When Target opens its first location in San Francisco in October, the retail chain also will premiere its first independently branded specialty store.

Called C9 Active Apparel, the stand-alone store will occupy 3,000 square feet on the street level of the refurbished Metreon complex, just below the new City Target, which will take up the entire second floor.

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A group of Long Islanders are walking to Paris – and no, it isn’t because it’s cheaper than flying. Although, now that you mention it, it is. Wetter, but cheaper, with the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System coming up with a new contest. Call it the Biggest Loser with a French accent. Employees who form …

Anecdotes are no substitute for hard data. But when they start to reach a critical mass and they all tell the same story, you know something big is going on.

For anyone who hasn’t heard about it yet, there’s an oil and gas boom under way in the US. By some estimates, the US has three times the proven shale oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Thanks to new drilling techniques for extracting oil and gas from shale rock underground, the price of natural gas has plummeted to 10-year lows, creating a market-based incentive for truckers to convert to the cheaper, cleaner fuel. All of this has broader implications for the US economy.

Let’s start with Washington’s obsession: job creation.

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13:43 PDT New York –

Major stock indexes dipped Tuesday as weak readings on consumer confidence gave investors little reason to extend the recent rally.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 43.90 points to close at 13,197.73, a loss of 0.3 percent. Bank of America fell 3.3 percent, the biggest drop in the Dow, after an analyst downgraded the stock.

Major indexes opened higher, then pulled back after 10 a.m., when the Conference Board said its index of consumer confidence slipped in March. Higher gas prices offset the surging stock market. Around the same time, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Virginia reported that a measure of regional manufacturing plunged this month.

Other indexes edged lower.

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SAN FRANCISCO — A major Yahoo (YHOO) shareholder has launched a campaign to win four seats on the Internet company’s board, setting the stage for a nasty battle that could drag on for months.

Hedge fund Third Point LLC, which owns a 5.8 percent stake in Yahoo Inc., thinks the struggling company would do better if Third Point representatives were in the boardroom helping recently hired CEO Scott Thompson overhaul the operations. Thompson joined Yahoo’s board in January after the company lured him away from eBay’s (EBAY) PayPal to become its CEO.

Third Point formally began its attempt to shake up Yahoo’s board with a Wednesday regulatory filing that comes more than a month after the hedge fund announced it would revolt unless the company accepted its slate of candidates as directors.

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