`v1.12.1`. The cgroups validator now throws an error instead of a warning if cgroups v1 is detected on the host and the provided KubeletVersion is `v1.35` or newer.
  
  kubeadm: Started using `k8s.io/system-validators` `v1.12.1` in `kubeadm` `v1.35`. During `kubeadm init`, `kubeadm join`, and `kubeadm upgrade`, the SystemVerification preflight check throws an error if cgroups v1 is detected and the detected `kubelet` version is `v1.35` or newer. For older versions of `kubelet`, a preflight warning...

  - A namespaced object with an ownerReference referencing a uid of a namespaced kind which does not exist in the same namespace is now consistently treated as though that owner does not exist, and the child object is deleted.

- Fix: the volume is not detached after the pod and PVC objects are deleted ([#117339](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/117339), [@cvvz](https://github.com/cvvz)) [SIG Storage]

- Finalizer Protection for Service LoadBalancers (ServiceLoadBalancerFinalizer) has been added as an Alpha feature, which is disabled by default. This feature ensures the Service resource is not fully deleted until the correlating load balancer resources are deleted. ([#78262](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/78262), [@MrHohn](https://github.com/MrHohn))

    * Logging Agent Improvements
    * Bump logging agent version to 0.2-1.5.33-1-k8s-1.
    * Appropriately set log severity for k8s_container.
    * Fix detect exceptions plugin to analyze message field instead of log field.
    * Fix detect exceptions plugin to analyze streams based on local resource id.
    * Disable the metadata agent for monitored resource construction in logging.

* Fix log spam due to unnecessary status update when node is deleted. ([#45923](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/45923), [@verult](https://github.com/verult))

- 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.
  Now, the scheduling queue notices extenders' failures and requeue Pods rejected by Extenders appropriately. ([#122022](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/122022), [@sanposhiho](https://github.com/sanposhiho)) [SIG Scheduling]

- 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.
  Now, the scheduling queue notices extenders' failures and requeue Pods rejected by Extenders appropriately. ([#122044](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/122044), [@sanposhiho](https://github.com/sanposhiho)) [SIG Scheduling]

### Bug or Regression

- Fix: statle smb mount issue when smb file share is deleted and then unmount ([#121851](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/121851), [@andyzhangx](https://github.com/andyzhangx)) [SIG Storage]
- 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.

* change azure disk host cache to ReadOnly by default ([#72229](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/72229), [@andyzhangx](https://github.com/andyzhangx))
* Nodes deleted in the cloud provider with Ready condition `Unknown` should also be deleted on the API server.  ([#72559](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/72559), [@andrewsykim](https://github.com/andrewsykim))