Parity of the partition function

Let $p(n)$ denote the number of partitions of a non-negative integer $n$. A well-known conjecture asserts that every arithmetic progression contains infinitely many integers $M$ for which $p(M)$ is odd, as well as infinitely many integers $N$ for which $p(N)$ is even (see Subbarao [22]). From the works of various authors, this conjecture has been verified for every arithmetic progression with modulus $t$ when $t=1,2,3,4,5,10,12,16,$ and $40.$ Here we announce that there indeed are infinitely many integers $N$ in every arithmetic progression for which $p(N)$ is even; and that there are infinitely many integers $M$ in every arithmetic progression for which $p(M)$ is odd so long as there is at least one such $M$. In fact if there is such an $M$, then the smallest such $M\leq 10^{10}t^7$. Using these results and a fair bit of machine computation, we have verified the conjecture for every arithmetic progression with modulus $t\leq 100,000$.