- The `system-node-critical` and `system-cluster-critical` priority classes are now limited to the `kube-system` namespace by the `PodPriority` admission plugin (matching changes in 1.11.1+). ([#65593](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/65593), [@bsalamat](https://github.com/bsalamat)) Courtesy of SIG Scheduling...

* kube-apiserver: fixes error creating system priority classes when starting multiple apiservers simultaneously ([#67372](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/67372), [@tanshanshan](https://github.com/tanshanshan))

(defaulting to one year), **and** are referenced from the `.secrets` list of a ServiceAccount object, **and**  are not referenced from pods. This label causes the authentication layer to reject use of the credentials. After being labeled as invalid, if the time specified by `--legacy-service-account-token-clean-up-period` (defaulting to one year) passes without the credential being used, the secret is automatically deleted. Secrets labeled as invalid which have not been auto-deleted yet can be re-activated...

- The topology manager aligns resources for pods of all QoS classes with respect to NUMA locality, not just Guaranteed QoS pods. ([#83492](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/83492), [@ConnorDoyle](https://github.com/ConnorDoyle))

- Ensure Pods are removed from the scheduler cache when the scheduler misses deletion events due to transient errors ([#106102](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/106102), [@alculquicondor](https://github.com/alculquicondor)) [SIG Scheduling]

- Fixed a scheduler preemption issue where the victim pod was not deleted due to incorrect status patching. This issue occurred when the preemptor and victim pods had different QoS classes in their status, causing the preemption to fail entirely. ([#126644](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/126644), [@Huang-Wei](https://github.com/Huang-Wei))

### Bug or Regression

### Volumes
* **[stable]** StorageClass API is promoted to v1 (storage.k8s.io/v1).
* **[stable]** Default storage classes are deployed during installation on Azure, AWS, GCE, OpenStack and vSphere.
* **[stable]** Added ability to populate environment variables from a configmap or secret.

- Fixed a bug in kubelet that will saturate CPU utilization after containerd got restarted. ([#97174](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/97174), [@hanlins](https://github.com/hanlins)) [SIG Node]
- Fixed a bug that causes smaller number of conntrack-max being used under CPU static policy. (#99225, @xh4n3) ([#99613](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/99613), [@xh4n3](https://github.com/xh4n3)) [SIG Network]

- Fix endpoint reconciler not being able to delete the apiserver lease on shutdown ([#114137](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/114137), [@aojea](https://github.com/aojea)) [SIG API Machinery]
- Resolves an issue that causes winkernel proxier to treat stale VIPs as valid ([#113558](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/113558), [@daschott](https://github.com/daschott)) [SIG Network and Windows]