The Loop: Ukrainians going on offensive, China shuts down a city as Omicron surges, and how coughing into your phone could detect COVID

Good morning, it's Wednesday, March 23. Here's what you need to get going today. 

One thing to know right now: Ukraine says it has retaken a strategically important suburb of Kyiv

Here's the lowdown:

• Ukrainian troops say they forced Russians out of the Kyiv suburb of Makariv after a fierce battle
• The regained territory allowed Ukrainian forces to retake control of a key highway and block Russian troops from surrounding Kyiv from the north-west
• The Pentagon says it cannot confirm this, but it has seen indications Ukrainians are going on the offensive, especially in the south
• The Ukrainian defence has been so dogged it is stoking fears Russia’s Vladimir Putin will escalate the war to new heights. Joe Biden said:

• Relentless Russian bombardment is turning Mariupol into the "ashes of a dead land", the council of the besieged port city has said

Multiple explosions and rising smoke are seen around an industrial compound in Mariupol. (Reuters: AZOV/Handout)

• And Ukrainian MP Dmytro Gurin says Mariupol has already been destroyed, and that the West does not understand "World War III" has already started
• Meanwhile, Ukraine's foreign ministry said about 300,000 people in the Russian-occupied southern city of Kherson were running out of food and medical supplies

One thing you’ll be hearing about today: COVID cases are climbing

The states are warning about this (yesterday, SA's Premier said they were expecting a "significant" surge). Here's the state of play: 

• Australia's three most populous states have recorded a significant rise in daily COVID infection numbers, as the Omicron sub-variant wave is surging
• Cases in Queensland jumped 15 per cent yesterday, to 8,881 new cases — and health authorities are concerned that 40 per cent of eligible Queenslanders are overdue for their booster shots
• New South Wales reported 20,960 new cases — about 5,000 more than a day earlier 
• Victoria's new cases were also up, at 9,594
• It comes as the country marks exactly two years since the first lockdowns were put in place, in an attempt to flatten the curve
• Infectious diseases expert Dr Paul Griffin says the new BA2 variant is starting to become the more dominant strain:

News while you snoozed

Let's get you up to speed.

• China has locked down a city of 9 million people (Shenyang, in the country's north-east) as the nation reported 4,770 new infections across the county. The majority of those cases are in the north-east region
• And recovery efforts in China have found wallets and identity cards at the wreckage of a China Eastern flight that crashed earlier this week. Investigators say despite ongoing rescue efforts, no survivors have been found — and they're struggling to establish the cause of the crash

Difficult terrain is hampering the investigation into how the China Eastern flight crashed. (AP: Xinhua/Zhou Hua)

• Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny will spend more time behind bars after being sentenced to 13 years on additional criminal charges. Navalny is already serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence at a prison camp for parole violations related to charges he says were fabricated to thwart his political ambitions

Alexei Navalny (left) says the case against him is politically motivated. (Reuters: Evgenia Novozhenina)

The news Australia is searching for

• Gareth Ward: That's this story from yesterday afternoon — the independent NSW MP has been charged by police with the alleged historical sexual abuse of a man and a teenage boy. He said in a statement he was completely innocent of the charges. The Premier issued a statement on Tuesday afternoon saying he would seek Mr Ward's immediate resignation from parliament.

Kiama MP Gareth Ward has denied any wrongdoing. (AAP: Joel Carrett)

• Kylie Jenner: In the spirit of saving you a click, the reality star said on her Instagram story her newborn son (with rapper Travis Scott) *isn't* named Wolf anymore, saying they just "really didn't feel like it was him". But she didn't say what his new name was

One more thing: How coughing into your *phone* could test for COVID 

Hate those nose swabs? This Australian invention tests by screening the coughing sound.

Early results of ResApp's trial of more than 700 people have been released but are still to be peer-reviewed.

The trial, which was funded by the developer, found if people coughed into the app, it could detect COVID-19 in 92 per cent of cases.

The trial included people with both the Delta and the Omicron strains of the virus.

An Australian company has created a smartphone app that assesses COVID cough sounds. (ABC Riverland: Catherine Heuzenroeder)

That's it for now

We'll be back later on with more.

ABC/wires