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VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI announced Monday that he would resign Feb. 28 — the first pontiff to do so in nearly 600 years. The decision sets the stage for a conclave to elect a new pope before the end of March.

The 85 year old pope announced his decision in Latin during a meeting of Vatican cardinals on Monday morning.

He emphasized that carrying out the duties of being pope — the leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics worldwide — requires "both strength of mind and body."

"After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths due to an advanced age are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry," he told the cardinals. "I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only by words and deeds but no less with prayer and suffering.

"However, in today's world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of St. Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary — strengths which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me."

The last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism among competing papal claimants.

Benedict called his choice "a decision of great importance for the life of the church."

The move sets the stage for the Vatican to hold a conclave to elect a new pope by mid-March, since the traditional mourning time that would follow the death of a pope doesn't have to be observed.

There are several papal contenders in the wings, but no obvious front-runner — the same situation when Benedict was elected pontiff in 2005 after the death of Pope John Paul II.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander has assembled a panel of county clerks and other officials to help shape a policy allowing for early voting.

Missouri now lets voters cast absentee ballots only if they swear they cannot go to the polls on Election Day or meet other, limited criteria. But the state has no general provision for early voting, which Kander says could help ease long lines at the polls.

Kander's appointed commission will meet throughout February to study the merits of early voting and evaluate what he says would be the efficient, fair and secure way to allow the practice.

Besides county clerks, the panel also includes former state lawmakers, the mayor of Joplin, a county elections director and private citizens.

Missouri mental health officials are hoping Governor Nixon and state lawmakers will include the Fulton State Hospital in a proposed state bonding package.

The hospital is Missouri's only maximum and intermediate security psychiatric hospital and is the oldest public mental health facility west of the Mississippi River.

The Department of Mental Health is proposing a new 300 bed, high-security facility that would cost about $211 million.

Officials say current facilities are antiquated and a new building would save utility cots and make for a safer facility.

Fulton State Hospital is in Fulton, Missouri, about 100 miles west of St. Louis.