I am the black child of a white father, a wingless bird, flying even to the clouds of heaven. I give birth to tears of mourning in pupils that meet me, even though there is no cause for grief, and at once on my birth, I am dissolved into air. What am I?

A swan sits at the center of a perfectly circular lake. At an edge of the lake stands a ravenous monster waiting to devour the swan. The monster can not enter the water, but it will run around the circumference of the lake to try to catch the swan as soon as it reaches the shore. The monster moves at 4 times the speed of the swan, and it will always move in the direction along the shore that brings it closer to the swan the quickest. Both the swan and the the monster can change directions in an instant.
The swan knows that if it can reach the lake's shore without the monster right on top of it, it can instantly escape into the surrounding forest.

How can the swan successfully escape?

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?

A thief is convicted in Mexico. He gets the death penalty. The judge allows him to say the last sentence to determine how the penalty will be carried out. If the thief lies, he will be hanged, if he speaks the truth he will be beheaded. The thief tells the last sentence and to everybody's surprise some minutes later he is set free because the judge cannot determine his penalty. What did the thief say?

If in a car race, the man who came two places in front of the last man finished one ahead of the man who came fifth, how many contestants were there?

Can you identify the Oscar-winning movie from the rebus below?

What is the last thing you take off before bed?

Can you name some countries which do not have the alphabet 'A' in them?

Here is what you have to do. You have to throw a ball as hard as you can but it must return back to you even if it does not bounce at anything. Also, you have nothing attached to the ball. There is no one on the other end to catch that ball and throw it back at you.

How will you do it?

If "P" means "-", "Q" means "/", "R" means "+", and "S" means "*" then find the value of the following:

21 Q 7 R 9 S 10 P 13