Radio Scanners, can someone help me get the hang of them?

I recently bought the 70 scanner from Radio Shack.. i have no clue on how it works. I got one cuz i have a neighbor that used one on the Power Outage we had yesterday and i thought it be cool to have one. I dont know how to work it, i found the frequencies for Laredo, Tx were I live but i want to know how to get the Local Law Enforcement Stations like my neighbors. And how to use it when iam out of town or on the road. Such as Exploits and Stuff. Besides that i want to know why Afterdawn.com being a techforum does not have a Telecommunications Section in its forums part of the site.