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 ${𝒫}_2(q,a)\ll q^{1.8345}.$

For $\epsilon \>0$ and any sufficiently large odd $n$ we show that for almost all $k\le R:=n^{1/5-\epsilon }$ there exists a representation $n=p_1+p_2+p_3$ with primes $p_i\equiv b_i$ mod $k$ for almost all admissible triplets $b_1,b_2,b_3$ of reduced residues mod $k$.