Good Morning Eric,
Let’s find answers for you:
1. By default WordPress strips out HTML from widget titles. There is a plugin at https://wordpress.org/plugins/html-in-widget-titles/ that claims to let you add in HTML to your widget titles. I haven’t used it personally, but if I”m reading it correctly, you replace greater than and less than signs with brackets in your HTML and the plugin will render it correctly. If it works, that might be a great option.
2. There is a WordPress filter you can use to change the RSS widget caches refresh rate. To use it, you’ll need to edit the theme’s functions.php file (there is an editor in the Appearance section of your dashboard). Scroll down to the very bottom and add this:
add_filter( 'wp_feed_cache_transient_lifetime',
create_function('$a', 'return 600;') );
(be sure to copy that code directly from the support site and not the notification email)
The 600 in that snippet is the time in seconds for the cache. You an adjust that amount to something that will be best fit your needs.
If you have any other questions, let me know.
Thanks,
Bill