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Role-Playing Game Awards Canceled at Major Conference After Excluding Zionists
Participants at Gen Con in 2023. Photo: Screenshot
An annual awards event that recognizes outstanding achievement for tabletop role-playing games (TTRPG) canceled its ceremony at the largest and longest-running gaming convention in North America after receiving backlash for excluding Zionists from being eligible for nomination.
This year, the Creator Recognition in TTRPG (CRIT) Awards updated its code of conduct so that people who “identify as Zionists,” “promote Zionist material,” or “support Zionism” would be ineligible to be nominated for one if its awards.
Facing backlash, the CRIT Awards doubled down on its policy change earlier this month, announcing the decision on social media “so there is no confusion.”
Hello, we at the CRIT Awards would like to take a moment to publicly acknowledge this so there is no confusion.
Thank you, and happy voting! pic.twitter.com/xV5HtpUznY
— CRIT Awards – VOTING OPENED (@crit_awards) June 14, 2024
The process for awarding CRIT Awards is similar to an election for many democratic legislatures. First, members of the TTRPG community submit nominees who are subsequently vetted and voted on in a primary election. The winners of the primary then compete in a general election.
The ceremony announcing the winners of the vote was scheduled to be held at the Gen Con convention in Indianapolis, Indiana in August. However, the CRIT Awards announced this week that it would not be participating in the event, citing unspecified “safety concerns,” after receiving significant backlash for excluding Zionists from eligibility — a decision that critics argued was antisemitic.
This is extremely difficult on us, as we navigate the situation that we are finding ourselves in.
Updates as to what any physical event will look like will come at a later date, until then: pic.twitter.com/4UF4QKh7Zc
— CRIT Awards – VOTING OPENED (@crit_awards) June 25, 2024
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) lambasted the CRIT Awards for its new policy.
“Disqualifying individuals based solely on the fact that they are Zionist — aka they support the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and Israel’s right to exist — is antisemitic,” the civil rights group wrote on X/Twitter.
Neither Gen Con nor the CRIT Awards responded to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment for this story.
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Trump Administration to Release Over $5 Billion School Funding That It Withheld
US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and President Donald Trump, in the East Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
President Donald Trump’s administration will release more than $5 billion in previously approved funding for K-12 school programs that it froze over three weeks ago under a review, which had led to bipartisan condemnation.
“(The White House Office of Management and Budget) has completed its review … and has directed the Department to release all formula funds,” Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the U.S. Education Department, said in a statement, adding funds will be dispersed to states next week.
Further details on the review and what it found were not shared.
A senior administration official said “guardrails” would be in place for the amount being released, without giving details.
Early in July, the Trump administration said it would not release funding previously appropriated by Congress for schools and that an initial review found signs the money was misused to subsidize what it alleged was “a radical leftwing agenda.”
States say $6.8 billion in total was affected by the freeze. Last week, $1.3 billion was released.
After the freeze, a coalition of mostly Democratic-led states sued to challenge the move, and 10 Republican US senators wrote to the Republican Trump administration to reverse its decision.
The frozen money covered funding for education of migrant farm workers and their children; recruitment and training of teachers; English proficiency learning; academic enrichment and after-school and summer programs.
The Trump administration has threatened schools and colleges with withholding federal funds over issues like climate initiatives, transgender policies, pro-Palestinian protests against U.S. ally Israel’s war in Gaza and diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
Republican US lawmakers welcomed the move on Friday, while Democratic lawmakers said there was no need to disrupt funding in the first place.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon separately said she was satisfied with what was found in the review and released the money, adding she did not think there would be future freezes.
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Israel to Resume Airdrop Aid to Gaza on Saturday, Military Says
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
Israel will resume airdrop aid to Gaza on Saturday night, the Israeli military said, a few days after more than 100 aid agencies warned that mass starvation was spreading across the enclave.
“The airdrops will include seven pallets of aid containing flour, sugar, and canned food to be provided by international organizations,” the military added in a statement.
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Trump Says Hamas ‘Didn’t Want to Make a Deal,’ Now Likely to Get ‘Hunted Down’
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – US President Donald Trump on Friday said the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas did not want to make a deal on a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza.
“Now we’re down to the final hostages, and they know what happens after you get the final hostages. And basically because of that, they really didn’t want to make a deal,” Trump said.
The comments followed statements by Middle East peace envoy Steve Witkoff and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the effect that Israel was now considering “alternative” options to achieve its goals of bringing its hostages home from Gaza and ending the terror rule of Hamas in the coastal enclave.
Trump added he believed Hamas leaders would now be “hunted down.”
On Thursday, Witkoff said the Trump administration had decided to bring its negotiating team home for consultations following Hamas’s latest proposal. Witkoff said overnight that Hamas was to blame for the impasse, with Netanyahu concurring.
Trump also dismissed the significance of French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that Paris would become the first major Western power to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
Macron’s comments, “didn’t carry any weight,” the US leader said.
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