Keyboard words are not in alphabetical order, Why?

I am a word that begins with the letter “i.” If you add the letter “a” to me, I become a new word with a different meaning, but that sounds exactly the same. What word am I?

Jenifer and Jesica are having a conversation.

Jenifer: I am definitely not over 30.
Jesica: I am 28 and you are surely 5 years older to me at least.
Jenifer: No, you are at least 29.

You are told that both of them are lying throughout in the conversation. Can you find their respective ages?

It spends most of its day eating white, but when it’s quick enough, it gets to eat fruit and sometimes some blue things. It’s in a dark room, where the walls are blue, it runs from a ghost that roams the halls and haunts it all the time. What is it?

It is a nine-letter word.
The exact opposite of the phrase "friendly and outgoing"
It contains the word "over".
It starts will a vowel.

What is it?

I am the beginning of everything, the end of everywhere. I'm the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space. What am I?

There's one "sport" in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

What is it?

I have lakes with no water, mountains with no stone and cities with no buildings. What am I?

Today is a very icy and cold morning in Newcastle. Mr Shearer, an office bus driver arrived to pick up the employees from the last stop. Shearer suddenly remembers that he needs to pick a newly joined 4miles to the north. Mr Shearer lost his direction compass, a few minutes later Shearer is able to figure that he is moving in the correct direction i.e. north. How did Shearer know that he is moving in the correct direction?

It is a six-letter word.
The first four letters are me.
The second and last letters are the same.
The fourth second and last letter is payment.

Who is it?