While the US electorate waits for the final word on who will be their next president, websites across the Atlantic have been analysing the fight so far. According to women's portal www.oxygen.com, 54% of women backed Al Gore in last week's election, compared to 43% voting for George W Bush. Yet an online poll by the portal found that two-thirds of women thought Laura Bush would make a better first lady than Tipper Gore, who only attracted a third of women's votes. Susan Medalie, of the Women's Campaign Fund, which promotes political action by women, suggests that women had been more sophisticated voters when it came to considering election issues like education, abortion and gun control: "Women went for a lot of these issues and men went for a guy they could go out and have a beer with."

Children's charities are calling for tighter controls on online chatrooms following last month's sentencing of internet paedophile Patrick Green. Commenting on an investigation by news service ZDNet UK, Childnet International and NCH Action for Children expressed concerns over Yahoo!'s policy of not censoring a chatroom unless it breaks, or incites the breaking of, the law. Childnet has set up a new site www.chatdanger.com to encourage safe use of chatrooms by children.

T V internet shopping is set to send us lasses leaping around our lounges, according to consultant psychologist Dr Aric Sigman. In a report for NTL on so-called "settee commerce", Dr Sigman suggests that women will become the dominant force in the living room of the future as they get together with friends or family to buy via the box. These entertaining shopping experiences will be "much like the Tupperware parties of the 70s", he says. Hold that excitement.