Card Transfer O Percent 18 Months

INTERNATIONAL SOCCER: Howard helps Everton to FA Cup win over Chelsea

American goalkeeper Tim Howard saved a crucial penalty for Everton in its shootout win over defending champion Chelsea in the FA Cup fourth round Saturday.

After the match finished 1-1 following extra time, the United States international brought Everton back into the shootout by batting away Nicolas Anelka’s attempt on Chelsea’s third kick.

Ashley Cole then sent his kick over the crossbar, allowing Phil Neville to convert the winning spot kick for Everton and complete a 4-3 shootout victory.

Leighton Baines’ stunning free kick with a minute remaining in extra time canceled out Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard’s close-range strike in the 104th.

Everton avenged its defeat to Chelsea in the 2009 final and will play Reading in the fifth round on March 1.

Chelsea was trying to become the first side to win three straight FA Cups since Blackburn achieved the feat between 1884-86.

Manchester United required a headed goal by defender Wes Brown to edge past nonleague side Crawley 1-0 in a last-16 match.

Crawley plays in the fifth tier and is 93 places below United in the league ladder, but took the 11-time champions all the way at Old Trafford. The visitors almost nicked a shock draw when substitute Richard Brodie headed against the crossbar in the final seconds.

United, which played a second-string team but brought on star striker Wayne Rooney for the second half, was hanging on in the last 10 minutes and had Brown to thank for his 28th-minute glancing header from Darron Gibson’s textbook cross.

In the two other fifth-round matches, Premier League sides Birmingham and Stoke eased to 3-0 home victories over Sheffield Wednesday and Brighton, both in England’s third tier.

Arsenal travels to London minnow Leyton Orient for a last-16 match Sunday, when Manchester City hosts third-tier side Notts County in a fourth-round replay.

SCOTLAND

GLASGOW – Hearts required an injury-time penalty save by goalkeeper Marian Kello to secure a 2-1 home win over Dundee United and consolidate third place in the Scottish Premier League.

Kello kept out David Goodwillie’s attempt with seconds remaining, ensuring the hosts moved provisionally two points behind second-place Rangers – which has three games in hand over the Edinburgh side.

United went ahead through Barry Douglas, but Rudi Skacel and Marius Zaliukas replied for Hearts.

Best Credit Cards for 2011 - CBS MoneyWatch.com

This article was updated on Feb. 18, 2011

One year ago Tuesday, the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act took effect, causing much handwringing among pundits that consumers would be cut off from credit. Your mailbox probably tells a different story. Now that the economy is improving and card companies have tightened their credit standards to keep away the deadbeats, card marketing is back with a vengeance. In the third quarter of 2010, card companies sent out 1.2 billion credit card mailings, more than three times than the number they sent in 2009, according to Mintel Comperemedia, a Chicago company that provides direct marketing research. Eighty percent of those offers were for some kind of rewards cards.

The message to consumers: We want you back.

“It’s a sign of how competitive the industry has become once again,” says Peter Garuccio, a spokesperson for the American Bankers Association. “Everyone is competing for the same wallets.”

That’s quite a turnabout in just a year. This time last February, new credit card customers were about as popular as Obamacare at a Sarah Palin rally. Interest rates and penalty fees were going up, while credit limits were going down. A number of analysts predicted credit rewards programs would end up on the endangered species list. Today, however, card companies are sweetening rewards programs and making it easier than it has been in years to transfer balances and “the rewards offers are better than pre-recession,” says Odysseas Papadimitriou, CEO and founder of CardHub.com . “Thanks to the CARD Act, consumers can now make educated decisions about what they want to purchase and count on their interest staying the same as long as they don’t miss a payment and there aren’t any changes in the prime rate. They could not do that before.”

To find out which of the new and improved cards are most worth your while, MoneyWatch consulted the experts at LowCards.com , CardRatings.com and BillShrink.com . Here are the best cards in six different categories:

The interest banks pay on your savings account may be at record lows, but average interest rates on credit cards are at near highs. What’s more, fixed rate cards have virtually disappeared.