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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — For all of Beyonce and Jay Z's up-tempo joint hits — the irresistible and catchy "Crazy In Love," the swagger anthem "Upgrade U" and the beat-driven "Drunk In Love" — it was the performers' emotional solo material that made their presence as a collaborative duo strong and resilient during their On the Run tour.

It was like they were having a conversation through songs in Philadelphia on Saturday night. Beyonce went from a rock-heavy arrangement of "If I Were a Boy" to a cover of Lauryn Hill's grand "Ex-Factor." She sang the latter as a woman scorned and repeated the line, "Why won't you cry for me?" The crowd at the Citizens Bank Park sang along, and cheered her on.

Jay Z's reply: His confessional and emotional 2002 tune, "Song Cry." It opens with the line: "I can't see them coming down my eyes, so I got to make the song cry."

He performed the track holding the microphone closely with both hands as he stood in place, all while a video of the power couple was shown in the background. She was in a wedding dress and they rode a motorcycle and danced.

She also cried, began shooting someone and was hit with a bullet. And then she sang the weighty ballad about a deceitful lover, "Resentment."

Beyonce performed the 2006 song sitting down and wearing a wedding veil. She changed the lyrics to note she's been "riding with you for 12 years," which earned a rousing roar from the crowd. And a video followed, starting with the line, "Love is an act of endless forgiveness."

The back-to-back performances full of sentiment and sensation were welcomed since Jayonce is pop's most intimate couple. In concert, they seemed to lay it all out through song.

Beyonce was most passionate when she sang the upbeat number "Why Don't You Love Me." She even grew teary-eyed after she belted some of the lyrics and paused for a minute as the crowd cheered. And cheered. And cheered.

She followed that by singing Justin Timberlake's part on the hit "Holy Grail," staring directly at Jay Z and singing the lyrics as if it were written for her. The transition from "Why Don't You Love Me" to "Holy Grail" was one of many that worked perfectly as the duo performed three dozen songs — some in snippets — for a feverish group of fans at a stadium with 40,000 seats.

They kicked off the nearly three-hour concert with high energy, going from "'03 Bonnie & Clyde" to "Upgrade U" to "Crazy In Love." They changed clothes about 10 times throughout the show, wearing mostly black with touches of leather onstage.

When Jay Z rapped about his "bad chick, H-town" during "Tom Ford," Beyonce crept onstage. And when Jay Z performed the anthemic "Clique," Beyonce was behind him. She nodded her head and then transitioned to "Diva," where her singing style is not far from rapping, and her swag is not far from Jay Z's.

It was also one of many songs where Beyonce danced with skill, enticing and igniting the audience and proving even further that she is contemporary pop's leading performer. She danced with precision on songs like "Run the World (Girls)," "Flawless" and "Ring the Alarm." Sometimes it was so clean she appeared robotic. And she also did the Nae Nae dance.

Other highlights throughout the night included Jay Z's catalog of hits, such as "I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)," "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" and "Big Pimpin." He went from "H to the Izzo" to "...In Paris," ending it by rapping the Kanye West verse: "She said, "'Ye, can we get married at the mall? I said, "Look, you need to crawl before you ball."

Beyonce's follow-up: "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)."

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Online:

http://www.livenation.com/artists/126187/on-the-run-beyonce-and-jay-z

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Follow Mesfin Fekadu on at twitter.com/MusicMesfin

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Eighteen people were killed in overnight attacks by gunmen in two counties on the Kenyan coast, where last month al-Qaida-linked militants claimed responsibility for killing 65 people, the Kenya Red Cross said Sunday.

The Sunday attacks took place in the towns of Hindi in Lamu county and Gamba in Tana River, the Kenya Red Cross chief Abbas Gulet said. Al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants from Somalia claimed responsibility for the attacks.

According to the Lamu county commissioner Njenga Miiri, a group of about 15 gunmen raided the Malamandi village of Hindi and started shooting at residents. The gunmen also attacked Gamba police station, Kenya's police chief David Kimaiyo said.

Hindi is about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Mpeketoni where dozens were killed in an attack last month, while Gamba is about 70 kilometers (43 miles) northwest of Mpeketoni.

The Kenya Red Cross said nine people were killed in Hindi, while in Gamba nine others were killed and one person was missing.

The nine victims in Gamba included five inmates said to be non-Muslim, who were killed when the gunmen attacked the police station, said a senior police officer who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media. Three other inmates escaped with the gunmen.

The officer said the gunmen got to the police station by car-jacking a truck and killing its three occupants. Five police officers were wounded in the attack and one officer was killed, he said.

Kenya has suffered a spate of gun and explosive attacks since deploying its troops in Oct. 2011 to fight al-Shabab militants.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for an attack last month on the town of Mpeketoni on the Kenyan coast and another attack the following day on a nearby village. Despite that, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and the interior minister have blamed local political networks for those attacks and said they were planned locally — assertions that have been met with skepticism.

Late last month police arrested Lamu Governor Issa Timamy and have charged him for murder, forceful eviction of population and terrorism charges in connection to the Mpeketoni attacks.

Congress has yet another problem it can't solve.

For years, the main federal transportation program has been spending more money than it takes in. This year, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the Transportation Department will disburse $45 billion, while collecting only $33 billion for its Highway Trust Fund.

As a result, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx warned states on Tuesday they will start seeing 28 percent cuts in federal funding for roads and bridges next month, unless Congress comes up with some extra money.

Congress might well do that — it's pumped billions of extra dollars into the fund several times over the past six years.

"People are terrified of going home to their constituents and saying, 'We just shut down the federal highway program,' or, 'We have cut the program to the extent we're going to have to shut some projects down,' " says Joshua Schank, president of the Eno Center for Transportation, a think tank in Washington.

"No matter where members of Congress are from, they're going to catch a lot of slack from transportation agencies, and then people who are being put out of work," he says.

The ability to tout new roads and repairs at home is one reason transportation spending has traditionally enjoyed deep bipartisan support. But the bill for perennially short-shrifting infrastructure has come due.

Most observers think Congress needs not just another short-term patch, but new strategies that would be more sustainable. It's just that no one can agree on what those might be.

"They'll probably find some way to patch that deficit with the general fund, because the states will be hurt," says Robert Puentes, a transportation fellow at the Brookings Institution, "but we're not really talking about large-scale systemic solutions here."

No Agreement In Congress

This spring, President Obama introduced a four-year, $302 billion infrastructure bill that would increase highway spending by nearly a fourth. It's an idea that's gone nowhere.

On Tuesday, the president openly mocked Congress for not moving on transportation, warning its dithering could lead to mass layoffs.

"I haven't heard a good reason why they haven't acted," Obama said in a speech near a Washington bridge deemed structurally deficient. "It's not like they've been busy with other stuff. No, seriously."

There's no end of ideas for transportation funding. Individual members have suggested ending Saturday postal delivery and devoting the savings to roads, or giving corporations a tax break so they'll repatriate overseas profits.

The main tax-writing committees in the House and Senate are working on separate legislation. But there doesn't seem to be any consensus as yet.

"I don't have any confidence at all that Congress is going to come up with another general fund bailout for the Highway Trust Fund," says Scott Dibble, who chairs the Minnesota Senate Transportation Committee. "Even if they do, it begs the larger question of what on earth Congress is going to do to meet the infrastructure needs that will keep the country competitive."

Root Of The Problem

The perpetual shortfalls stem from the fact that the federal gas tax of 18.4 cents per gallon hasn't been raised since 1993. Meanwhile, the country's population has grown substantially and cars have become more fuel-efficient, even as construction costs have continued to increase.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials estimates that the average household pays $46 per month in state and federal gas taxes, while paying three or four times that amount per month on cable, utilities and cell phones.

"This isn't the first time we're running into the insolvency problem with the trust fund," says Joung Lee, AASHTO's deputy director.

Several states — "as different as Wyoming and Maryland," Puentes points out — have raised their own gas taxes over the past year.

There's a bipartisan proposal in the Senate to increase the federal gas tax by 12 cents over two years. But there's never been much appetite for the idea of an increase in Washington.

"Do I want to be associated with making the gas tax higher?" Schank asks. "They don't want to be that guy. President Obama doesn't want to be that guy."

In fact, one proposal being floated by congressional Republicans would lower the federal gas tax to 3.7 cents per gallon, essentially leaving transportation funding and planning to the states.

Funding Federal Priorities

That doesn't seem likely to happen. The national government won't want to surrender its role in providing basic infrastructure.

As things stand, though, the federal government contracts most infrastructure management out to states. The states put up the money for projects and then get reimbursed through the Highway Trust Fund.

The question now is whether states will be paid back in a timely manner. Most state transportation departments, having been through this before, assume that Congress will come through with the money in the end.

But some have already started putting projects on hold. "States will have to slow and stop construction if the federal government fails to meet its obligations in a timely manner," says Schank, the Eno Center president.

The silver lining of the shortfall, Schank suggests, is that it could force policymakers to think about ways to spend limited transportation dollars more efficiently.

That's been the hope for years, that the federal government will put greater emphasis on projects of national importance — rail connections in Chicago, say — instead of continuing to send out money to states on a formula basis.

For now, it's enough of a challenge for Congress to come up with the money that's already been promised this year.

"It's great the president's talking about it and great that everyone's exercised about it," says Puentes, the Brookings scholar, "but there's no clear path."