Here’s the awaited update for newspress to fix the comment issue. If you have by now customized your theme then just copy the file index.php, single.php and folder inc to your theme files. Sorry for the super late update as im very busy revising all my themes ( structure, browser support which includes ie7, hooks for customization, etc ).
Regarding the thumbnail and featured posts metaphors issue, just set the file permission of timthumb.php and folder cache to 777 and metaphors must be uploaded in your wordpress not an external image from additional site. if none of this works then it’ your end that has a problem, for that, contact your host to fix the issue.
Lastly, in this area the footer widget, you can only edit or customize that part by requesting a link removal. see our license page
