Reading view

There are new articles available, click to refresh the page.

U.S.-U.K. Trade Deal Hits Stumbling Block

The U.S. government has paused a tech-focused trade pledge with Britain over broader disagreements about Britain’s digital regulations and food safety rules.

© Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Trump and Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain in September, after signing an agreement that pledged to extend research collaborations and deepen partnerships in the tech industry.

MAHA Moms Are Angry at the E.P.A. Lee Zeldin Is Trying to Win Them Back.

A split is emerging within Trump’s base as health activists accuse Mr. Zeldin of leading the agency to prioritize chemical industry interests over public health.

© Niki Chan Wylie for The New York Times

Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, appeared with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Salt Lake City earlier this year. Recently, Mr. Zeldin has gone on a charm offensive.

Biden Has Raised Little of What He Needs to Build a Presidential Library

His library foundation has told the I.R.S. that by the end of 2027 it expects to bring in just $11.3 million — not nearly enough for a traditional presidential library.

© Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times

Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has only just begun to raise money for a presidential library, starting with an event for potential donors on Monday in Washington.

Explainer: WindowServer

macOS apps manage the contents of their own windows, drawing and refreshing them as needed. To assemble all those into what you see on the display requires the services of the master compositor, WindowServer. From the moment the login window appears during startup, WindowServer is hard at work, and remains so until you shut your Mac down. Without WindowServer there could be no GUI.

Open Activity Monitor, and you’ll see WindowServer close to the top of the lists of CPU, Memory and Energy users, and when it’s getting into trouble that’s always a good place to check what’s going on. You may also notice that it’s one of a pair of processes including distnoted with their own user, _windowserver. They’re part of a group of interconnected services that handle window management, compositing of windows into the display image, and event-routing for apps, with distnoted responsible for system message notification. In the log, WindowServer is often associated with the com.apple.SkyLight subsystem.

Compositing

You can get a good idea of what WindowServer does using screenshots. Using Command-Shift-4, then pressing the Space Bar and selecting a window, you’ll get a shot of an individual window, as shown in the examples below.

WindowServer then positions them according to their current locations on the whole display, and produces a layered composite, as you’ll see in a screenshot taken with Command-Shift-3.

That composite is then sent through the graphics driver to graphics output hardware.

With its central position in managing windows and compositing them, WindowServer is also responsible for handling Spaces (introduced in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard), window tabs, multiple displays, and behaviours that stream or extract parts or all of a display image, such as taking screenshots. Because WindowServer knows which app’s windows are where, and which are at the front, it also routes events to each app. For example, when you click on a window it’s WindowServer that determines which app owns it, and passes the event to that app to handle.

Increasing demands

This has become more involved since the introduction of Catalyst apps from macOS 10.14 to 11, and more so since Apple silicon Macs have brought the ability to run iOS and iPadOS apps. iOS uses a series of -board services in its GUI, including SpringBoard as the Home Screen manager instead of the Finder, FrontBoard to manage the app’s scenes, and FuseBoard its menus, which are now run in macOS as well. RunningBoard, which manages the resources available to apps and processes, has been incorporated into macOS for some years.

The introduction of Stage Manager in macOS Ventura in 2022 has also been stretching WindowServer, and can substantially increase its demands on CPU and memory.

Troubleshooting

You can reduce WindowServer’s workload by closing tabs and windows, turning Stage Manager off, reducing the number of Spaces, and quitting non-essential apps. Even when window or tab contents aren’t visible, they still have to be managed.

If WindowServer stops working, for instance when it crashes, not only does everything on the display(s) freeze, but routing of input events such as clicks or taps also stops. Although in the past macOS has sometimes been able to log the current user out and restart WindowServer, fatal WindowServer problems are now most likely to result in a kernel panic or a complete freeze. If your Mac freezes rather than restarts, a forced shutdown may be your only way forward. Recurrent WindowServer crashes suggest a problem with the graphics driver or graphics hardware, and should always be reported to Apple via Feedback.

Summary

  • WindowServer works between app window management and display drivers to composite windows and on-screen items, producing the image to be displayed.
  • With distnoted it also routes events to apps, and manages system message notification.
  • Demands on its services are increased with Spaces and Stage Manager, and it works with the different expectations of Catalyst and iOS/iPadOS apps running in macOS.
  • When it fails, displays freeze and input responses cease. If those don’t precipitate a kernel panic and restart, a forced shutdown may be the only solution.
  • Report recurrent problems to Apple in Feedback.

In Trump’s Justice Dept., Failing in Court Might Be Better Than Bucking the Boss

This week demonstrated an emerging reality for President Trump: Commanding the Justice Department is not the same as controlling the justice system.

© Vincent Alban/The New York Times

The White House was served a legal rebuke this week when federal grand jurors in Alexandria, Va., rejected the Justice Department’s push to indict Letitia James, the New York attorney general, on mortgage-related charges for the second time in a week.

Amid Fractures on the Right, Tucker Carlson Continues His Attacks

On Theo Von’s show this week, Mr. Carlson lashed out at a major supporter of the president, the F.B.I. and “unimpressive, dumb, totally noncreative people” leading the nation.

© Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Tucker Carlson did not mention President Trump by name in his attacks on Theo Von’s podcast, but his broadsides were the latest evidence of a deepening divide in Republican politics.

Amid Fractures on the Right, Tucker Carlson Continues His Attacks

On Theo Von’s show this week, Mr. Carlson lashed out at a major supporter of the president, the F.B.I. and “unimpressive, dumb, totally noncreative people” leading the nation.

© Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Tucker Carlson did not mention President Trump by name in his attacks on Theo Von’s podcast, but his broadsides were the latest evidence of a deepening divide in Republican politics.

How Ukraine Has Responded to Trump’s Peace Plan and Russia’s Demands for Territory

A Ukrainian peace plan, sent this week to Washington, pushes back against President Trump’s proposal that Ukraine give up more land for peace, although Russia is unlikely to accept it.

© Pool photo by Maxwells

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Ukrainian peace proposal now being discussed consisted of three documents, one of which lays out plans for rebuilding the country.
❌