Poonam

[Poonam @poonioberoi]

@KayBurley How right you are…. Miss you on TV each morning!

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

I am a senior coordinating producer for the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. I have worked eleven of these. I was backstage at the Washington Hilton when the shots were fired.

The first thing I heard was not the gunfire. It was glass.

A champagne flute hit the floor of the International Ballroom at approximately 9:47 PM. Then a second. Then the sound that I have since been told was a 12-gauge shotgun, which from inside the ballroom sounded like a heavy door slamming in a parking garage. Then the Secret Service moved. They moved the President, the Vice President, the First Lady through the east corridor in under ninety seconds, which is protocol, which is practiced, which is the one part of the evening that worked exactly as it was designed.

Everything else was improvised.

I know this because I ordered the wine. 94 tables. Two bottles per table. 188 bottles of a Willamette Valley pinot noir that the Association selected in February after a tasting committee spent three meetings debating between Oregon and Burgundy. Oregon won. The budget was $14,200. I signed the invoice. I can tell you the vintage. I can tell you the distributor. I can tell you the per-bottle cost because I negotiated it down from $89 to $76.

What I cannot tell you is how 147 of those bottles left the building during an active shooter evacuation.

I can tell you what I saw. A correspondent from a network I will not name picked up two bottles on her way to the east exit. Full bottles. One in each hand. She was wearing heels and she did not spill. A man in a tuxedo tucked one inside his jacket the way you'd shoplift a paperback at an airport bookstore. A woman picked up a bottle, looked at the label, put it back, and took a different one.

She checked the vintage. During an evacuation. That's editorial judgment under pressure.

The theme of the dinner was "A Free Press for a Free People." The banners were still hanging when the evacuation began. I know because I hung them. Twenty-three banners, navy blue, gold serif lettering, $11,400 for the set. They were still hanging when 2,600 guests were directed to the exits by Secret Service agents, one of whom had just taken a shotgun round in his ballistic vest and walked to the ambulance on his own feet.

The agent's vest costs approximately $800. The wine that left the building was worth $11,172 at Association cost. At restaurant markup, roughly $29,000. The guests saved more in wine than the vest that saved the agent.

That's priority.

The video went viral by 10:15 PM. Not the video of the evacuation. Not the Secret Service response. The wine. Three guests in formalwear grabbing bottles off white tablecloths while being told to move toward the exits, while a man with a shotgun stood in the same motor entrance where John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan 45 years ago.

A woman near the service entrance was crying. She said "I just wanna go home." She was not holding wine. She was holding her phone. She was the only person I saw that night who looked afraid rather than inconvenienced.

That's the distinction. The rest of the ballroom did not look afraid. They looked interrupted. An active shooter at the WHCD is a logistical problem. The dinner was disrupted. The timeline was off. The after-party at the French Ambassador's residence would need to be rescheduled. These are contingency matters. Contingency matters have solutions. Fear is for people who attend events without security details.

I have produced eleven of these dinners. I have managed seating charts that require diplomatic-grade negotiations. I have handled comedians, cabinet secretaries, network anchors, and the editor of a major newspaper who once threatened to leave because his table was behind a column.

I have never, in eleven years, seen a guest leave a $76 bottle on the table during an evacuation. I have also never seen a guest check the label first. Both observations are consistent. The bottle is worth taking. The evacuation is worth surviving. The instinct is to do both simultaneously.

188 bottles placed. 41 recovered. 147 unaccounted for. One agent shot. Zero guests injured. Zero bottles broken.

A free press for a free people. The press is free. The wine was $76 a bottle. They took it anyway.

[G-PA @IndianaGPA]

Love has no color or judgement 🙏

Marisa didn't just save me that night... she saved my entire future. My name is Mason Hale, and the woman I call Mom was once the deputy who found me during the hardest night of my childhood. I was nine. The house was loud, chaotic, and I was terrified. When Deputy Marisa Hale stepped inside, I thought she was there to scold me or take me away. Instead, she sat beside me on a dirty couch, opened her arms, and told me l was safe. For the first time in a long time, believed it. That night changed everything. When it became clear I had no stable home to return to, Marisa stayed involved in my case. She visited me, checked on me, showed up for school meetings, and slowly became the steady person I had never had. At eleven years old, I became her son. Today, at 24, I wear a police uniform too. I don't do it to be like her. I do it because she showed me what real protection looks like. 💕💕

[Sahil Oberoi @SahilOberoi1]

Next to me, a group of Test cricket veterans have brought a full steak pie, veggies, potatoes & gravy. Haven’t seen anything like it.

#bbccricket #ENGvIND

[Coldplay Tour🌙 @coldplaytour_]

This Could Be Paradise✨
#ColdplayAhemdabad

[Indian Tech & Infra @IndianTechGuide]

🚨 Coldplay concert last night at Narendra Modi stadium, Ahmedabad. 🇮🇳

[Poonam @poonioberoi]

@airindia Loving this!

[Poonam @poonioberoi]

@realTrumpNewsX B

[Poonam @poonioberoi]

Flew @airindia from DEL to LHR. Already on X….i said Komal Kumari looked after us very well, helpful, smiling at all time.Charging point did not work other than that…..I simply love Air India. Jai Hind.🙏🏻🇮🇳. #AIFans #FlyAI

[Poonam @poonioberoi]

#airindia thank you for a very comfortable flight AI 112, Delhi to Heathrow, Komal Kumari looked after us very well always with a smile, today 5th November

[Poonam @poonioberoi]

Flew @airindia from LHR to DEL. Good take off and landing. Excellent air hostages. Great service ….. charging worked for phone.. #AIFans #FlyAI

[Poonam @poonioberoi]

Flew @airindia from DEL to LHR. Such nice friendly staff, helpful, chatty …..what more can one ask for!. #AIFans #FlyAI
Flight 111 on 27.03.2024

[Poonam @poonioberoi]

Flight 166 today Air India delayed by one hour forty minutes

[Poonam @poonioberoi]

@airindia 🇮🇳👏🇮🇳👏

[Poonam @poonioberoi]

Excellent experience on @airindia from LHR to DEL. Dawn of a new era #AIFans #AirIndia #ThisIsTATA

[Charlie Watts @char1iewatts]

London has the best firework display in the world! #LondonNYE #LondonFireworks

[Max Foster @MaxFosterCNN]

Happy New Year from the London drone show

[Sahil Oberoi @SahilOberoi1]

No one does NYE fireworks like London! 🎆

#LondonNYE #LondonFireworks

[GB News @GBNEWS]

🚨 ICYMI...

'If you're fleeing your home out of fear for your life, then why on earth are you flying home for Christmas?!'

'This is an absolute outrage!'

Luton Airport's Border Force chief reveals that asylum seekers are 'flying home for Christmas'.

[GB News @GBNEWS]

'If you're fleeing your home out of fear for your life, then why on earth are you flying home for Christmas?!'

'This is an absolute outrage!'

Luton Airport's Border Force chief reveals that asylum seekers are 'flying home for Christmas'.