Can't turn off "Announce the time."

I have a MacBook 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, with 2 GB memory, with 249.2 GB storage of which I've used only 45.69 GB .

I recently uploaded Mavericks (OSX 10.9.4), and now have two problems.

First: I can't turn off "Announce the time." I schedule my MacBook to automatically turn off at certain time and before that I will de-select "Announce the time" but it won't turn off. I've tried doing it multiple times. I've tried to backdoor it via Notifications and ultimately did a "Repair Disk Permissions and verified my disk hoping that would help — to no avail. The only way I can get it to work is if I completely shut down the computer and manually start up. A simple Restart won't do; the computer has to be completely shut down for the setting to work.

This seems to be a Mavericks problem. I've never had this problem before.

Second: When my computer turns on (either manually or automatically) I have it set so the iTunes opens automatically with it. The problem is that even though the screen has iTunes on it Finder is front of it like some kind of invisible film. This prevents me from operating iTunes remotely unless I go and manually click the screen to bring iTunes to the front. How can I get it so iTunes is automatically "in front" when my computer starts up in the morning?