Flag Day ceremonies being held Saturday by Elks Lodge 2134 in Twentynine Palms. 

At 10:00 a.m. Elks Lodge members will be holding their annual flag day ceremony. Then at 11:00 a.m. American Lodge Post 761 is holding their flag disposal ritual outside at Elks Lodge 2134 and disposing of no longer usable US Flags.

Anyone needing to dispose of no longer usable Flags can bring them to the event to be disposed of during the ceremony. According to the Post Commander, Harbour Freight will be providing replacement flags.

The public is being invited to take part in a special edition of the Z107.7 “Up Close” show this Friday. This week’s Up Close show (6/13) will be an early candidate’s forum for candidates for the California 23^rd District Congressional seat. Under California’s “Top Two” rules, a non-partisan primary will be held on June 6, of 2026.

The top two vote-getters, regardless of party, will then go to the general election on November 3, 2026.

The field is already up to five candidates:

Jay Obernolte – Incumbent (R)
Edwin Alonzo (D)
Paul Chakalian (D)
Alexis Claiborne (D)
Tess Lynn Hodge (D).

All five were invited and while Obernolte was unable to attend, the other four will be on the show.

Host Gary Daigneault will ask all four challengers questions generated by social media. The rules for submitting a question are simple, it must be a question that can be answered by all candidates.

Please submit your question to Z1077fm@gmail.com. The show will air live from 10:00 am – 11:00am this Friday and then be podcast at z1077fm.com.

The deadline to submit questions is 5:00pm Thursday, June 12, 2025.

An estimated 700 Marines were deployed from Camp Pendleton and the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC) yesterday, on orders from President Trump to “stop Los Angeles from burning down.” The marines are expected to join the nearly 2000 National Guard who have been deployed against the wishes of California Governor Gavin Newsom who said the state would be pursuing legal action against the deployments, calling the President “deranged” and “dictatorial.”

On Monday afternoon (6/9) at around 2:00 pm in Joshua Tree, a growing group of ten to twelve people gathered in the shade of the Mel Benson Real Estate Building at the intersection of Park Boulevard and Twentynine Palms Highway. The group says they were creating signs after hearing that the Marines would be coming from the combat center located 15 miles east of Joshua Tree in neighboring Twentynine Palms. Shortly after 4:L00 p.m. a man identifying himself as a representative of the property owner asked the group to leave the property. The small office has two “NO TRESPASSING” signs in the window, and as the group moved across Highway 62 to the opposite corner, the man stayed on the phone with the Sheriff’s office and briefly spoke to Z107.7:

Todd, property owner of Mel Benson Real Estate: “They want to protest? I’ve got no problem with that. Stand in the (expletive) highway. Get hit by a car, I don’t care. You’re not going to do it on my property. They’re mad because the military is going? Ok, great. Be mad. But it doesn’t give you the right to stand on people’s property and do what you are doing.”

The group stood on south side of the intersection with signs that read “U.S. in Distress,” “Keep America Free 4 Every One” and “ICE – this is a MORAL MOMENT.”

Earlier in the afternoon white transport buses were spotted traveling east toward Twentynine Palms, and as word spread that those same busses were heading back west toward Joshua Tree, the small but growing group moved back to the north side of the street, this time staying on the sidewalk.

Demonstrator: “The purpose of taking a stand and standing out here in the heat… it may not seem like we are doing much but we’re not going on with ‘business as usual.’ The cars are seeing it, we are right here next to a National Park, they are seeing that the people are not happy and we’re going to stand up in every town, everywhere.”

Around 5:00 p.m. the convoy of buses and military vehicles appeared on Highway 62 and were escorted by CHP through the intersection. A few people in their cars honked and shouted at the police and military as they rolled through Joshua Tree.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s department told Z107.7 that Deputies were requested to escort the Marine convoy to the Riverside County line, as a “precaution in case any issues arose.”

As the convoy made its way through Yucca Valley and approached the grade, one person was arrested during the escort after they stopped their pickup truck in the roadway near Hess Boulevard, briefly blocking the convoy and other traffic from traveling down the hill. Cy Earl, 28, was arrested and released for Obstruction of a Public Officer.

The San Bernardino Sheriff’s department continued the escort until the Riverside County line, where Riverside County deputies took over the escort as the convoy continued toward Los Angeles.

As of 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning, there were reports of some arrests overnight in Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Times characterized the protests as “calmer” than Sunday night’s demonstrations. Here in the Morongo Basin there were unconfirmed reports of more buses of troops being deployed overnight. Z107.7 reached out to the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center for comment, but as of Tuesday morning we’ve yet to hear back.

We will continue to update this story as more details become available.