I looked at the source code on applicable webpages for both issues and here's what I'm finding:
1) I'm using WordPress and I've installed Google Tag Manager in the header.php right after the opening body tag. The tag appears to be published only on pages with posts but not the homepage nor any other pages created. It looks like the theme uses uses get_header(); to load the header into single.php and the page template, but I wouldn't know where. And so Google Webmaster Tools can't verify.
2) I also added a meta description in the header.php file just for the homepage with
That's not showing either.
Any suggestions? Thanks.