- Drop additional rule requirement (cronjobs/finalizers) in the roles who use kubectl create cronjobs to be backwards compatible ([#124883](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/124883), [@ardaguclu](https://github.com/ardaguclu)) [SIG CLI]

- Drop support for the deprecated and unsupported kubectl run flags:
  - filename
  - force
  - grace-period
  - kustomize
  - recursive
  - timeout
  - wait
  

- The `IPTablesOwnershipCleanup` feature (KEP-3178) is now GA; kubelet no longer
  creates the `KUBE-MARK-DROP` chain (which has been unused for several releases)
  or the `KUBE-MARK-MASQ` chain (which is now only created by kube-proxy). ([#119374](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/119374), [@danwinship](https://github.com/danwinship))

* Improved user experience for environments without a public internet connection and users using other CRI runtimes than Docker
* Support for structured configuration for the kubelet, which avoids the need to modify the systemd drop-in file
* Many improvements to the upgrade process and other bug fixes

### SIG Instrumentation

there are a few backwards-incompatible changes, most of which are rare use cases, bug fixes with side effects, or things that have been deprecated for multiple releases already:
  
  - https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/kustomize/pull/4911: Drop support for a very old, legacy style of patches. patches used to be allowed to be used as an alias for patchesStrategicMerge in kustomize v3. You now have to use patchesStrategicMerge explicitly, or update to the new syntax supported by patches. See...

### Bug or Regression

- Drop additional rule requirement (cronjobs/finalizers) in the roles who use kubectl create cronjobs to be backwards compatible ([#124883](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/124883), [@ardaguclu](https://github.com/ardaguclu)) [SIG CLI]

* Kubernetes version command line parameter in kubeadm has been updated to drop an unnecessary redirection from ci/latest.txt to ci-cross/latest.txt. Users should know exactly where the builds are stored on Google Cloud storage buckets from now on. For example for 1.9 and 1.10, users can specify ci/latest-1.9 and ci/latest-1.10...

* Fix bug where EndpointSlice controller would attempt to modify shared objects. ([#85368](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/85368), [@robscott](https://github.com/robscott))
* Revert ensure the KUBE-MARK-DROP chain in kube-proxy mode=iptables. Fix a bug in which kube-proxy deletes the rules associated with the chain in iptables mode. ([#85527](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/85527), [@aojea](https://github.com/aojea))

- Ensure the `KUBE-MARK-DROP` chain in kube-proxy IPVS mode. The chain is ensured for both IPv4 and IPv6 in dual-stack operation. ([#82214](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/82214), [@uablrek](https://github.com/uablrek))

- Fixed graceful apiserver shutdown to not drop outgoing bytes before the process terminates. ([#72970](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/72970), [@sttts](https://github.com/sttts))

### Apps