As the merger between Newsweek and the Daily Beast continues to find its footing, 16 of the magazine’s employees have agreed to take a buyout and walk. That’s more than were expected to, meaning future layoffs could be avoided.

Last week, news spread that the New York Times would need to cut 100 of its 1,250 editorial staffers by year’s end. But instead of just flat out firing people, the Times decided to lead with a buyout option open to any newsroom employee. When the packages arrived they had some surprising details about the newsroom, as uncovered by the New York Observer, who managed to snag an envelope.

Yesterday Eater, Lockhart Steele‘s Curbed Media food blog, expanded its reach with the launch of a national site, Eater National. And, in order to make coast-to-coast domination a little easier, the site is paying anybody with a food blog $25 to hang it up and post an Eater ad as their final piece of content.