- The shorthand for --output flag in kubectl explain was accidentally deleted, but has been added back. ([#131993](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/131993), [@superbrothers](https://git...

reject CSR requests created by a node identity for the signers `kubernetes.io/kubelet-serving` or `kubernetes.io/kube-apiserver-client-kubelet` with a CN starting with `system:node:`, but where the CN is not `system:node:${node-name}`. The feature gate `AllowInsecureKubeletCertificateSigningRequests` defaults to `false`, but can be enabled to revert to the previous behavior. This feature gate will be removed in Kubernetes v1.33. ([#126441](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/126441), [@mica...

- Containers which specify a `startupProbe` but not a `readinessProbe` were previously considered "ready" before the `startupProbe` completed, but are now considered "not-ready". ([#92196](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/92196), [@thockin](https://github.com/thockin)) [SIG Node]

 selector mutation in
 a consistent way. This restriction may be lifted in the future, but
 it is likely that that selectors will remain immutable after the move to v1.
 You can continue to use code that depends on mutable selectors by calling
 the apps/v1beta1 API in this release, but you should start planning for code
 that does not depend on mutable selectors.

### kube-proxy
* In 1.7, the kube-proxy component has been converted to use a configuration file. The old flags still work in 1.7, but they are being deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Cluster administrators are advised to switch to using the configuration file, but no action is strictly necessary in 1.7. ([#34727](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/34727), [@ncdc](https://github.com/ncdc))

### Namespace

OwnerReference to a cluster-scoped resource. If the OwnerReference resource does not exist or is subsequently deleted, the given node object will be deleted via garbage collection. By default, node users are authorized for create and patch requests but not delete requests against their node object. Since the NodeRestriction admission controller does not prevent patching OwnerReferences, a compromised node could leverage this vulnerability to delete and then recreate its node object with modified taints...

- On single-stack configured (IPv4 or IPv6, but not both) clusters, Services which are both headless (no clusterIP) and selectorless (empty or undefined selector) will report `ipFamilyPolicy RequireDualStack` and will have entries in `ipFamilies[]` for both IPv4 and IPv6.  This is a change from alpha, but does not have any impact on the manually-specified Endpoints and EndpointSlices for the Service. ([#99555](https://git...

    *  - LOCAL_SSH_KEY (for local and vsphere providers) was previously assumed to be a filename relative to ~/.ssh but can now also be an absolute path
    *  - KUBE_SSH_KEY (for skeleton provider) was previously assumed to be a filename relative to ~/.ssh but can now also be an absolute path

### Other notable changes

    * The vSphere cloud provider has a cleanup function with a loop,
    * inside of which a write lock was intended to prevent races against
    * VM creation, but the usage of the sync.RWMutex type is incorrect,
    * plus is placed in a defer call so the locking is effectively
    * nonexistent.  This patch adds an anonymous function call inside

- The API server now detects and fails on startup if there are conflicting issuers between JWT authenticators and service account configurations. Previously, such configurations would run but could be inconsistently effective depending on the credential. ([#123561](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/123561), [@enj](https://github.com/enj))