🚀 go-pugleaf

I am a newbie in using InDesign to paginate a newspaper. I battle with: 

1. Text frames indicating there's overset, or hidden, text when there's not. This happens with headlines and stories. The only way I can avoid this is if I stretch the bottom of the text block farther down than appropriate--and then it ends up sticking over the top of another text block of photo. I've tried checking that there aren't "hidden characters" such as spaces, but there's not. This gives me lots of trouble because I grow used to seeing the red crosses on almost all text blocks and then miss the ones that REALLY ARE indicating hidden text. How do I handle this? 

2. Why does the text block of the last column of a story that I've threaded always stretch out clear to the bottom of the page on its own, even when there's only a couple of lines all by themselves at the top? This is a frustration as I have to manually drag the text block back up, and remember, my pages are 21-1/2 inches long. Is there a shortcut to "tighten" the text blocks up without using the mouse?