- 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))

- Give terminal phase correctly to all pods that will not be restarted. 

  In particular, assign Failed phase to pods which are deleted while pending. Also, assign a terminal 
  phase (Succeeded or Failed, depending on the exit statuses of the pod containers) to pods which
  are deleted while running.
  
  This fixes the issue for jobs using pod failure policy (with JobPodFailurePolicy and PodDisruptionConditions 

they remain valid even after a new refreshed token is provided. The metric `serviceaccount_stale_tokens_total` can be used to monitor for workloads that are depending on the extended lifetime and are continuing to use tokens even after a refreshed token is provided to the container. If that metric indicates no existing workloads are depending on extended lifetimes, injected token lifetime can be shortened to 1 hour by starting `kube-apiserver` with `--service-account-extend-token-expiration=false`....

- If BoundServiceAccountTokenVolume is enabled, cluster admins can use metric `serviceaccount_stale_tokens_total` to monitor workloads that are depending on the extended tokens. If there are no such workloads, turn off extended tokens by starting `kube-apiserver` with flag `--service-account-extend-token-expiration=false` ([#96273](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/96273), [@zshihang]...

- 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),...

- DRA: Device taints enable DRA drivers or admins to mark device as unusable, which prevents allocating them. Pods may also get evicted at runtime if a device becomes unusable, depending on the severity of the taint and whether the claim tolerates the taint. ([#130447](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/130447), [@pohly](https://github.com/pohly)) [SIG API Machinery, Apps, Architecture, Auth, Etcd, Instrumentation, Node,...

* [action required] The WATCHLIST calls are now reported as WATCH verbs in prometheus for the apiserver_request_* series.  A new "scope" label is added to all apiserver_request_* values that is either 'cluster', 'resource', or 'namespace' depending on which level the query is performed at.([#52237](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/52237))


#### Go Client

* Add support for adding/removing finalizer depending on PVC protection feature gate ([#61370](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/61370), [@gnufied](https://github.com/gnufied))

longer being set, and are being replaced by the more portable mechanism of the kubelet configuration file. The individual variables in the kube-env metadata entry were never meant to be a stable interface and this release note only applies if you are depending on them. ([#60020](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/60020), [@roberthbailey](https://github.com/roberthbailey))

* kube-proxy: feature gates are now specified as a map when provided via a JSON or YAML KubeProxyConfiguration,...

or `/etc/sysconfig/kubelet`, depending on the system you're running on.
([#64780](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/64780), [@luxas](https://github.com/luxas))