What does does this rebus picture means ?

John gave half of the apples he had plus one more to Jacob. He gave half of the remaining ones plus one more to James. Now, John was left with just one apple.

Can you find out how many did he have in the beginning?

What is the riddle which can be asked all day with a different correct answer each time.

You have an empty wine bottle with a cork that has been secured at the top in a normal way. There is a metal ring inside the bottle that is suspended by a string.

How can you make the metal ring drop to the bottom if you are not allowed to touch anything - not the bottle, not the cork, not the thread and not the ring?

It comprises roots which nobody sees,
Much taller than those trees,
Up and up it goes,
Still it never grows?

I am a word of 12 alphabets.

* Alphabets 12, 4, 7, 2, 5 : Eastern beast of burden
* Alphabets 1, 8, 10, 9 are street made famous by Sinclair Lewis.
* Alphabets 11, 3, 6 are past.

On whole it means a person suffering from delusions of greatness.

What Is it ?

I am a five-letter word and people eat me. If you remove the first letter I become an energy form. If you remove the first two letters, I am needed to live. Scramble the last three letters and I am a drink. What word am I?

This is a most unusual paragraph. How quickly can you find out what is so unusual about it? It looks so ordinary, you'd think nothing was wrong with it. Actually, nothing IS wrong with it. But it is not as ordinary as you might think. If you think about it for a bit, you will find out why it is truly so unusual. So what is it? What is so unordinary about this paragraph?

A wealthy man lives alone in a small cottage. Being partially handicapped he had everything delivered to his cottage. The mailman was delivering a letter one Thursday when he noticed that the front door was ajar. Through the opening he could see the man's body lying in a pool of dried blood. When a police officer arrived he surveyed the scene. On the porch were two bottles of warm milk, Monday's newspaper, a catalog, flyers, and unopened mail. The police officer suspects it was foul play. Who does he suspect and why?

John and his team plan to rob a safe. They got just one chance to break the code else the local police will be informed. Below are clues:
A) Exactly one number is perfectly placed: 9 8 1
B) Everything is incorrect: 9 2 4
C) Two numbers are part of the code of the safe but are wrongly placed: 0 9 3
D) One number is part of the code of the safe but is wrongly placed: 1 4 7
E) One number is part of the code of the safe but is wrongly placed: 7 8 3