Let ${𝒫}_r$ denote an almost-prime with at most $r$ prime factors, counted according to multiplicity. Suppose that $a$ and $q$ are positive integers satisfying $(a,q)=1$. Denote by ${𝒫}_2(a,q)$ the least almost-prime ${𝒫}_2$ which satisfies ${𝒫}_2\equiv a(modq)$. It is proved that for sufficiently large $q$, there holds $${𝒫}_2(a,q)\ll q^{1.8345}.$$ This result constitutes an improvement upon that of Iwaniec (1982), who obtained the same conclusion, but for the range $1.845$ in place of $1.8345$.

Let ${𝒫}_2$ denote a positive integer with at most $2$ prime factors, counted according to multiplicity. For integers $a$, $q$ such that $(a,q)=1$, let ${𝒫}_2(q,a)$ denote the least ${𝒫}_2$ in the arithmetic progression ${\{nq+a\}}_{n=1}^{\infty }$. It is proved that for sufficiently large $q$, we have $${𝒫}_2(q,a)\ll q^{1.825}.$$ This result constitutes an improvement upon that of J. Li, M. Zhang and Y. Cai (2023), who obtained ${𝒫}_2(q,a)\ll q^{1.8345}.$

We compare the growth of the least common multiple of the numbers $u_{a_1},...,u_{a_n}$ and $|u_{a_1}\cdots u_{a_n}|$, where ${\left(u_n\right)}_{n\ge 0}$ is a Lucas sequence and ${\left(a_n\right)}_{n\ge 0}$ is some sequence of positive integers.

We completely solve the Diophantine equations $x²+2^a{q}^b=yⁿ$ (for q = 17, 29, 41). We also determine all $C=p{₁}^{a₁}\cdots p_k^{a_k}$ and $C=2^{a₀}p{₁}^{a₁}\cdots p_k^{a_k}$, where $p₁,...,p_k$ are fixed primes satisfying certain conditions. The corresponding Diophantine equations x² + C = yⁿ may be studied by the method used by Abu Muriefah et al. (2008) and Luca and Togbé (2009).