To help you figure things out, there is a Scoop Admin Guide which can hopefully answer most of your questions.
Some tips:
Most of the layout is changed in "Blocks", found in the admin tools menu
Features can be turned on and off, and configured, in "Site Controls" in the admin tools menu
Stories have an "edit" link right beside the "Full Story" link on an index page, and right beside the "Post a Comment" link on the full story page. They can also be edited by clicking the story title in the "Story List" admin tool
Boxes are what allow you to write new features for Scoop; they require a knowledge of the perl programming language to work with effectively, although you can often make small changes without knowing much perl. If you would like a feature added but cannot program it yourself, ScoopHost does custom Scoop programming as one of its services.
If you aren't sure where to look for a particular feature or piece of display, try the "Search Admin Tools" link in the admin tools menu.
The Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO), headed by Maureen Taylor, has been telling Detroit welfare recipients to occupy foreclosed homes around the city. "You can't imagine," Taylor told WWJ in Detroit, "when we get to work at 9 and 10 in the morning, there are 20 to 30 people in the hallway talking about `I don't have any more money, my rent is due' - three or four months behind - what can I do? And its unreal, because we don't have answers except to say, `here's a list of houses that we have intercepted that have been repossessed by banks, pick one and move in.'" To boot these trespassers out of the homes, banks are forced to take MWRO to court.