I think I found a bug in 0.2.3, some text has asterisks around it, which seems to be a formatting error.
Depends on what you're reffering to, asterisks can be used for *giggles* or *whispers*, stuff like that?
No, like the "next day" text appears as "**next day**"
This is intentional for actions, same as **go to bed** etc.