What is the next number in this matchsticks series riddle?

Birbal was jester, counsellor, and fool to the great Moghul emperor, Akbar.
The villagers loved to talk of Birbal's wisdom and cleverness,
and the emperor loved to try to outsmart him.
One day Akbar (emperor) drew a line across the floor.
"Birbal," he ordered, "you must make this line shorter, but you cannot erase any bit of it."
Everyone present thought the emperor had finally outsmarted Birbal.
It was clearly an impossible task.
Yet within moments the emperor and everyone else present had to agree that Birbal had made the line shorter without erasing any of it.
How could this be?

I ask Joseph to pick any 5 cards out of a deck with no Jokers.

He can inspect then shuffle the deck before picking any five cards. He picks out 5 cards then hands them to me (Jack can't see any of this). I look at the cards and I pick 1 card out and give it back to Joseph. I then arrange the other four cards in a special way, and give those 4 cards all face down, and in a neat pile, to Jack.

Jack looks at the 4 cards i gave him, and says out loud which card Joseph is holding (suit and number). How?

The solution uses pure logic, not sleight of hand. All Jack needs to know is the order of the cards and what is on their face, nothing more.

It's a test that will check your IQ.

Suppose you have one 11 minute hourglass and one 13 minute hourglass.

Can you measure exactly fifteen minutes using them ?

A convention is held where all the big logicians are summoned. The master places a band on everyone's forehead. Now all of them can see others bands but can't see his own. Then they are told that there are different colours of bands. All the logicians sit in circle and they are further explained that a bell will ring at regular intervals. The moment when a logician knew the colour of band on his forehead, he will leave at the next bell. If anyone leaves at the wrong bell, he will be disqualified.

The master assures the logicians that the puzzle will not be impossible for anyone of them. How will the logicians manage ?

How many words can a quill made with the feather of a pigeon write with a 100ml bottle of black ink?

Solve the alphametic puzzle by replacing the alphabet with the number.

S T O R M +
S O L E S
=========
T O W E L
=========

I start and end with 500 and carry a 5 in my heart. But I require the first letter and the first number to be complete. I am the name of a King.

Who am I ?

Below, you can see three complete equations and one incomplete. Based on the three complete ones, can you complete the incomplete one?

5 $ 4 $ 3 $ 9 = 4215
6 $ 9 $ 2 $ 6 = 3816
4 $ 7 $ 3 $ 3 = 1122
7 $ 2 $ 7 $ 4 = ____

I was speeding and ran through a stop sign, yet two traffic officers who were there do nothing about it.

why?