* Action required: validation rule on metadata.initializers.pending[x].name is tightened. The initializer name needs to contain at least three segments separated by dots. If you create objects with pending initializers, (i.e., not relying on apiserver adding pending initializers according to initializerconfiguration), you need to update the initializer name in existing objects and in configuration files to comply...

- Updates that remove remaining `metadata.finalizers` from  an object that is pending deletion (non-nil metadata.deletionTimestamp) and has no graceful deletion pending (nil or 0 metadata.deletionGracePeriodSeconds) now results in immediate deletion of the object. ([#77952](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/77952), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt))

  - Clone `kubernetes/kubernetes` in `update-vendor.sh` shallowly, instead of fetching all revisions
  - Speed up binpacking by reducing the number of PreFilter calls (call once per pod instead of #pods*#nodes times)
  - Speed up finding unneeded nodes by 5x+ in very large clusters by reducing the number of PreFilter calls
  - Expose `--max-nodes-total` as a metric

- Added new functionality to the Go client code (`client-go`) library. The `List()` method for the metadata client allows enabling API streaming when fetching collections; this improves performance when listing many objects.

    - [SIG VMWare](#sig-vmware-1)
    - [SIG Windows](#sig-windows-1)
  - [Other Notable Changes](#other-notable-changes-11)
    - [Bug Fixes](#bug-fixes)
    - [Not Very Notable (that is, non-user-facing)](#not-very-notable-that-is-non-user-facing)
  - [External Dependencies](#external-dependencies)
- [v1.12.0-rc.2](#v1120-rc2)
  - [Downloads for v1.12.0-rc.2](#downloads-for-v1120-rc2)
    - [Client Binaries](#client-binaries-11)

* Add the support to the scheduler for spreading pods of StatefulSets. ([#41708](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/41708), [@bsalamat](https://github.com/bsalamat))
* Added support to minimize sending verbose node information to scheduler extender by sending only node names and expecting extenders to cache the rest of the node information ([#41119](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/41119), [@sarat-k](https://github.com/sarat-k))

* Fix public IP not found issues for VMSS nodes ([#80703](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/80703), [@feiskyer](https://github.com/feiskyer))
* Resolves a bug that prevented sending a multi-version custom resource to an admission webhook. ([#79495](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/79495), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt))

    - [API-Machinery](#api-machinery-1)
    - [Network](#network-1)
    - [Azure](#azure-1)
    - [Scheduling](#scheduling)
    - [Other changes](#other-changes)
  - [Non-user-facing Changes](#non-user-facing-changes)
  - [External Dependencies](#external-dependencies)
- [v1.10.0-rc.1](#v1100-rc1)
  - [Downloads for v1.10.0-rc.1](#downloads-for-v1100-rc1)
    - [Client Binaries](#client-binaries-14)

  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 
  feature gates enabled) that their pods could get stuck in the pending phase when deleted.
  

enabled.([#51436](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/51436))

* [Action required] The validation rule for metadata.initializers.pending[x].name is tightened. The initializer name must contain at least three segments, separated by dots. You can create objects with pending initializers and not rely on the API server to add pending initializers according to `initializerConfiguration`. If you do so, update the initializer name in the existing objects and the configuration files to...