Region in brief: Sales are slow for skating tickets

With less than a month until the opening day of the AT&T 2010 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Spokane, event promoters say tickets sales are lagging.

More than 21,000 tickets need to be sold to beat the record-setting 154,893 tickets sold for the 2007 event, also held in Spokane.

Organizers hope news announced this week that all 12 of the former U.S. Olympic gold medalists in figure skating will perform during the Smucker’s Skating Spectacular on Jan. 24 will help generate additional ticket sales.

Tickets for all skating events are available at www.spokane2010.com, by calling (888) SK8-2010, or at the Spokane Arena box office.

Advocate charged with sexual assault

A Coeur d’Alene resident and self-described advocate for autistic children is in jail in Missouri on sexual assault charges from more than 20 years ago.

Randall L. Tetzner, 50, was booked into the Adair County Detention Center on Thursday after fighting extradition in Kootenai County, where he’d been in jail since Sept. 18. Tetzner is charged with two counts of sodomy and two counts of rape for alleged incidents in 1986 and 1987, according to jail records.

Tetzner has advocated for improved policies for children with disabilities in the Coeur d’Alene School District.

Man suspected in Post Falls graffiti

Post Falls police have arrested a 20-year-old man in a series of graffiti crimes involving racial slurs in the downtown area over the past 10 months.

Grayson K. Shults was arrested on suspicion of felony malicious injury to property.