Solution:

Read the question carefully again. New Year do falls after Christmas but that happens if two different years. The question is put up against the year 2050 and thus there will be 51 weeks and 2 days in between them as New Year will appear on 1 January 2050 and Christmas will happen on 25 December 2050.

Solution:

10 prisoners must sample the wine. Bonus points if you worked out a way to ensure than no more than 8 prisoners die.

Number all bottles using binary digits. Assign each prisoner to one of the binary flags. Prisoners must take a sip from each bottle where their binary flag is set.

Here is how you would find one poisoned bottle out of eight total bottles of wine.

Bottle 1 Bottle 2 Bottle 3 Bottle 4 Bottle 5 Bottle 6 Bottle 7 Bottle 8
Prisoner A X X X X
Prisoner B X X X X
Prisoner C X X X X
In the above example, if all prisoners die, bottle 8 is bad. If none die, bottle 1 is bad. If A & B dies, bottle 4 is bad.

With ten people there are 1024 unique combination so you could test up to 1024 bottles of wine.

Each of the ten prisoners will take a small sip from about 500 bottles. Each sip should take no longer than 30 seconds and should be a very small amount. Small sips not only leave more wine for guests. Small sips also avoid death by alcohol poisoning. As long as each prisoner is administered about a milliliter from each bottle, they will only consume the equivalent of about one bottle of wine each.

Each prisoner will have at least a fifty percent chance of living. There is only one binary combination where all prisoners must sip from the wine. If there are ten prisoners then there are ten more combination where all but one prisoner must sip from the wine. By avoiding these two types of combination you can ensure no more than 8 prisoners die.

One viewer felt that this solution was in flagrant contempt of restaurant etiquette. The emperor paid for this wine, so there should be no need to prove to the guests that wine is the same as the label. I am not even sure if ancient wine even came with labels affixed. However, it is true that after leaving the wine open for a day, that this medieval wine will taste more like vinegar than it ever did. C'est la vie.

Solution:

We now have a square of 3x3 size, 2 squares of 2x2 size and 5 squares of 1x1 size.

Solution:

The check was for dollars 31.63.

The bank teller gave her dollars 63.31
She spent .05, and then she had dollars 63.26, which is twice the check.

Let x be the dollars of the check, and y be the cent.

The check was for 100x + y cent
He was given 100y + x cent

Also
100y + x - 5 = 2(100x + y)
Expanding this out and rearranging, we find:
98y = 199x + 5

or 199x ≡ -5 (mod 98)
or 98*2*x + 3x ≡ -5 (mod 98)
3x ≡ -5 ≡ 93 (mod 98)
this quickly leads to x = 31

Solution:

Firstly: Policeman should take the thug across the river thames and escort the boat back with him. (Thug across, everyone else on this side)
Then, Policeman will take one cat along, leave it there, and on the way back, bring back the thug (since thug cannot be left with anyone without policeman's supervision).
Then Mrs. Mother will take the second cat on the other side. Drop it there and bring the boat back. For the 4th trip, Mrs. Mother And Mr. Father Will travel to the other side, and Mrs. Mother will stay there, and MR. Father will bring the boat back. (Now Mrs. Mother and 2 cats are on the other side.)
5th trip, the policeman takes the thug across. Both of them stay there and Mrs. Mother will come back. Then for the next trip, Mr. Father and Mrs. Mother will go on the boat, and Mrs. Mother will stay there, and Mr. Father will return back.
Then for the 7th trip, Mr. Father will travel with one dog. On the return, the policeman and the thug will return. Then in the next trip, the Policeman will take the second dog. (Now Mrs. Mother and her two cats; Mr. Father and his two dogs and the Policeman is here).
Now finally the policeman takes the boat on the other side and brings back the thug.
Tough one, right ?

Solution:

Anybody will prefer the shop in the eastern market for sure. There are two reasons for it:
Firstly, since there are only two barbers in the town, the one running the shop in eastern market must have gotten his hair done by the one running the shop in the northern market and vice versa. Thus, if the barber in the eastern market has a shabby haircut, it must be due to the incompatibility.
Secondly, the neat and clean shop can be due to the scarcity of customers as well. While the untidy place refers to the fact that so many customers get their hair done in that shop.

Thus any one will opt for the barber shop in the eastern market.

Solution:

The driver is actually the wife and mother.

Solution:

40 balls

Solution:

Adam and Eve were the only people without navel. As they were not born out of a mother, they never had umbilical cords and thus never had navels.

Solution:

fIvE thOUsAnd(5000)

Solution:

The person on 73rd number will survive.

Explanation:
Till the number is the power of 2, the last person to survive will be the one who started it. But since the number here is not the power of 2, we will take the greatest power of 2 that is less than the number which is 64.
100 - 64 = 36
36 people are killed as 2, 4, 6, ..., 72. Thus the sword will now be given to the 73rd person. Now he is the first person to start in the remaining 64 people. Thus he will be the one to survive.