*   Pod preemption has been improved.
    *   Now takes PodDisruptionBudget into account. ([#56178](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/56178),[ @bsalamat](https://github.com/bsalamat))

* scheduler: makes pod less racing so as to be put back into activeQ properly ([#73078](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/73078), [@Huang-Wei](https://github.com/Huang-Wei))
* jsonpath expressions containing `[start:end:step]` slice are now evaluated correctly ([#73149](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/73149), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt))

* The GitRepo volume type is deprecated. To provision a container with a git repo, mount an `EmptyDir` into an `InitContainer` that clones the repo using git, then mount the `EmptyDir` into the Pod's container.
([#63445](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/63445), [@ericchiang](https://github.com/ericchiang))

controller back-off logic is now decoupled from workqueue. In case of parallelism > 1, if there are multiple new failures in a reconciliation cycle, all the failures are taken into account to compute the back-off. Previously, the back-off kicked in for all types of failures; with this change, only pod failures are taken into account. If the back-off limits exceeds, the job is marked as failed immediately; before this change, the job is marked as failed in the next back-off. ([#114768](https://git...

- Kubeadm: Added missing cluster-info context validation to prevent panics when the user has a malformed kubeconfig in the cluster-info ConfigMap that excludes a valid current context. ([#134715](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/134715), [@neolit123](https://github.com/neolit123))

### OpenStack

SIG-OpenStack updated the OpenStack provider to use newer APIs, consolidated community code into one repository, engaged with the Cloud Provider Working Group to have a consistent plan for moving provider code into individual repositories, improved testing of provider code, and strengthened ties with the OpenStack developer community.

### API-machinery

  - The schema for the alpha `CSINodeInfo` CRD has been split into `spec` and `status` fields, and new fields `status.available` and `status.volumePluginMechanism` added. Clusters using the previous alpha schema must delete and recreate the CRD using the new schema. ([#70515](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/70515),...

- `MergeDefaultEvictionSettings` indicates that defaults for the evictionHard, evictionSoft, evictionSoftGracePeriod, and evictionMinimumReclaim fields should be merged into values specified for those fields in this configuration. Signals specified in this configuration take precedence. Signals not specified in this configuration inherit their defaults. ([#127577](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/127577),...

- Reverted the previous fix for portforward cleanup because it introduced a kubelet regression which can lead into segmentation faults. ([#102587](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/102587), [@saschagrunert](https://github.com/saschagrunert)) [SIG API Machinery and Node]

### Other (Cleanup or Flake)

* Use arm32v7|arm64v8 images instead of the deprecated armhf|aarch64 image organizations ([#50602](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/50602), [@dixudx](https://github.com/dixudx))