- Do not remove the "batch.kubernetes.io/job-tracking" finalizer from a Pod, in a corner
  case scenario, when the Pod is controlled by an API object which is not a batch Job

- kubeadm: Fixed a possible scenario where kubeadm can pull much newer control-plane images ([#69301](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/69301), [@neolit123](https://github.com/neolit123))

- Kubelet no longer watches `ConfigMaps` and `Secrets` for terminated pods, in worst scenario causing it to not be able to send other requests to kube-apiserver ([#74809](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/74809), [@oxddr](https://github.com/oxddr))

- The scheduling queue didn't notice any extenders' failures, it could miss some cluster events,
  and it could end up Pods rejected by Extenders stuck in unschedulable pod pool in 5min in the worst-case scenario.

   ([#122022](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/122022), [@sanposhiho](https://github.com/sanposhiho))
- QueueingHint implementation for `NodeAffinity` was reverted because potential scenarios were found where events that make Pods schedulable could be missed.

- DRA: scheduling pods is up to 16x faster, depending on the scenario. Scheduling throughput depends a lot on cluster utilization. It is higher for lightly loaded clusters with free resources and gets lower when the cluster utilization increases. ([#127277](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/127277), [@...

  especially when the `topologyKey` is not node-level. Revisit the node affinity and/or pod selector in the
  topology spread constraints to avoid this scenario. ([#107009](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/107009), [@kerthcet](https://github.com/kerthcet))

- `kubectl wait` ensures that observedGeneration >= generation to prevent stale state reporting. An example scenario can be found on CRD updates. ([#97408](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/97408), [@KnicKnic](https://github.com/KnicKnic))

### Documentation

more information, see [#53356](https://issue.k8s.io/53356#issuecomment-333748618).

* A performance issue was identified in large-scale clusters when deleting thousands of pods simultaneously across hundreds of nodes. Kubelets in this scenario can encounter temporarily increased latency of `delete pod` API calls -- above the target service level objective of 1 second. If you run clusters with this usage pattern and if pod deletion latency could be an issue for you, you might want to wait...

* enhance the daemonset sync logic in clock-skew scenario ([#77208](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/77208), [@DaiHao](https://github.com/DaiHao))