change "2 days ago" to real date and show number of comments

2) and show number of comments for the article in the front page.

Number of comments was really easy.

<?php comments_number( 'no responses', 'one response', '% responses' ); ?>.

must be added to content.php and featured-content.php

1) change “2 days ago” type of “date” to a real date

looks more complicated

I have the same question, particularly with respect to the date
— and I probably need more handholding, as I am not Ms. Coder!

Thanks.

@hdsilvermith: If you require assistance then, as per the Forum Welcome, please post your own topic.

You can do that by by editing the template-tags.php in the inc directory.

Find: (line 134)
sprintf( '<a class="entry-date" href="%s">%s</a>', esc_url( get_permalink() ), $output_time )

Replace:
sprintf( '<a class="entry-date" href="%s">%s</a>', esc_url( get_permalink() ), $regular_time )

Find: (line 209)
sprintf( '<a class="entry-date" href="%s">%s</a>', esc_url( get_permalink() ), $output_time ),

Replace:
sprintf( '<a class="entry-date" href="%s">%s</a>', esc_url( get_permalink() ), $regular_time ),