Restaurants face nationwide chicken shortage
CBSN
Family-owned restaurants around the U.S. are struggling to keep a steady supply of chicken tenders, wings and breasts on their customers' plates due to a nationwide poultry shortage.
Consumer demand for the bird has surged amid the coronavirus, with Americans turning to comfort foods and buying more chicken sandwiches from fast-food restaurants like KFC, McDonald's and Popeyes. As millions of Americans sat idle during stay-at-home orders last year and ordered chicken meals from local restaurants, poultry producers have been unable to keep pace. Outbreaks of the coronavirus in meat processing plants early on in the pandemic forced many plants to close, putting further strain on the supply chain. Supplies were further constricted in February, when some chicken farms in Texas had to temporarily shut down because of Winter Storm Uri.Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.