We prove that every topologically stable homeomorphism with global attractor of $\mathbb {R}^n$ is topologically stable on its global attractor. The converse is not true. On the other hand, if a homeomorphism with global attractor of a locally compact metric space is expansive and has the shadowing property, then it is topologically stable. This extends the Walters stability theorem (Walters, On the pseudo-orbit tracing property and its relationship to stability. The structure of attractors in dynamical systems, 1978, pp. 231–244).

We decompose the topological stability (in the sense of P. Walters) into the corresponding notion for points. Indeed, we define a topologically stable point of a homeomorphism f as a point x such that for any C0-perturbation g of f there is a continuous semiconjugation defined on the g-orbit closure of x which tends to the identity as g tends to f. We obtain some properties of the topologically stable points, including preservation under conjugacy, vanishing for minimal homeomorphisms on compact manifolds, the fact that topologically stable chain recurrent points belong to the periodic point closure, and that the chain recurrent set coincides with the closure of the periodic points when all points are topologically stable. Next, we show that the topologically stable points of an expansive homeomorphism of a compact manifold are precisely the shadowable ones. Moreover, an expansive homeomorphism of a compact manifold is topologically stable if and only if every point is topologically stable. Afterwards, we prove that a pointwise recurrent homeomorphism of a compact manifold has no topologically stable points. Finally, we prove that every chain transitive homeomorphism with a topologically stable point of a compact manifold has the pseudo-orbit tracing property. Therefore, a chain transitive expansive homeomorphism of a compact manifold is topologically stable if and only if it has a topologically stable point.

We present a structure theorem for a broad class of homeomorphisms of finite order on countable zero dimensional spaces. As applications we show the following.

1. (a) Every countable nondiscrete topological group not containing an open Boolean subgroup can be partitioned into infinitely many dense subsets.

2. (b) If $G$ is a countably infinite Abelian group with finitely many elements of order 2 and $\beta G$ is the Stone–Čech compactification of $G$ as a discrete semigroup, then for every idempotent $p\,\,\in \,\,\beta G\backslash \{0\}$, the subset $\{p,-p\}\subset \beta G$ generates algebraically the free product of one-element semigroups $\{p\}$ and $\{-p\}$.

The existence of a class of multitype measure branching processes is deduced from a single-type model introduced by Li [8], which extends the work of Gorostiza and Lopez-Mimbela [5] and shows that the study of a multitype process can sometimes be reduced to that of a single-type one.