- Replaces Boolean-pointer-helper functions with the "k8s.io/utils/ptr" implementations. ([#132794](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/132794), [@PatrickLaabs](https://github.com/PatrickLaabs)) [SIG API Machinery, Auth, CLI, Node and Testing]

  - A server-side apply request that changes an object which has duplicate items in a keyed list, and modifies the duplicated item removes the duplicates and replaces them with the single item contained in the server-side apply request. ([#121575](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/121575), [@apelisse](https://github.com/apelisse))

- Scheduler now retries updating a pod's status on ServiceUnavailable and InternalError errors, in addition to net ConnectionRefused error. ([#111809](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/111809), [@Huang-Wei](https://github.com/Huang-Wei)) [SIG Scheduling]
- The `goroutines` metric is newly added in the scheduler. 

* Bound cloud allocator to 10 retries with 100 ms delay between retries. ([#61375](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/61375), [@satyasm](https://github.com/satyasm))

* kubectl: improves compatibility with older servers when creating/updating API objects ([#61949](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/61949), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt))
* Bound cloud allocator to 10 retries with 100 ms delay between retries. ([#61375](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/61375), [@satyasm](https://github.com/satyasm))

- The scheduler retries gated Pods more appropriately, giving them a backoff penalty too. ([#126029](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/126029), [@sanposhiho](https://github.com/sanposhiho)) [SIG Scheduling]

### Feature

- A new client side metric `rest_client_request_retries_total` has been added that tracks the number of retries sent to the server, partitioned by status code, verb and host ([#108396](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/108396), [@tkashem](https://github.com/tkashem))

- Kube-scheduler now retries scheduling Pods rejected by the PodTopologySpread plugin when related Pods are created, deleted, updated, or when a node matches the specified topologyKey. ([#122195](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/122195), [@nayihz](https://github.com/nayihz))...

- Promoted `generateName` retries to beta, and made the `NameGenerationRetries` feature gate
  enabled by default.

  - If all QueueingHintFn return QueueSkip, it puts this pod back to the unschedulable pod pool
  
  Having appropriate QueueingHintFn contributes to reducing useless retries and thus improves the overall scheduler's performance.
  
  **How can I migrate?**
  
  For backward compatibility, nil `QueueingHintFn` is treated as always returning QueueAfterBackoff.