- Kubelet startup now fails CRI connection if service or image endpoint is throwing any error ([#115102](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/115102), [@saschagrunert](https://github.com/saschagrunert))

- If more than one StorageClass is designated as default (via the "storageclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class" annotation), choose the newest one instead of throwing an error. ([#110559](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/110559), [@danishprakash](https://github.com/danishprakash))
- In `client-go` `SharedInformerFactory` will now support waiting for goroutines during shutdown.

- Kubeadm now prints warnings instead of throwing errors if the current system time is outside of the NotBefore and NotAfter bounds of a loaded certificate.  ([#94504](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/94504), [@neolit123](https://github.com/neolit123))

    * In `kubectl describe`, find controllers with ControllerRef, instead of showing the original creator. ([#42849](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/42849), [@janetkuo](https://github.com/janetkuo))

- Fixed a potential bug that scheduler preempts unnecessary pods. ([#70898](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/70898), [@Huang-Wei](https://github.com/Huang-Wei))

### SIG Storage

- Fixed CSI volume limits not showing up in node's capacity and allocatable ([#70540](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/70540), [@gnufied](https://github.com/gnufied))

* remove retry operation on attach/detach  azure disk ([#70568](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/70568), [@andyzhangx](https://github.com/andyzhangx))
* Fix CSI volume limits not showing up in node's capacity and allocatable ([#70540](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/70540), [@gnufied](https://github.com/gnufied))

    - `scheduler_async_api_call_duration_seconds`: histogram of API call execution duration by call type and result
    - `scheduler_pending_async_api_calls`: gauge showing current number of pending API calls in the queue. ([#133120](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/133120), [@utam0k](https://github.com/utam0k)) [SIG Release and Scheduling]

- kubeadm: Added better handling of errors during unmount when calling `kubeadm reset`. When failing to unmount directories under `/var/run/kubelet`, kubeadm will now throw an error instead of showing a warning and continuing to clean up said directory. In such situations, it is better for you to inspect the problem and resolve it manually. Then, you can call `kubeadm reset` again to complete the cleanup.

- Kubeadm: perform pre-flight validation on host/node name upon `kubeadm init` and `kubeadm join`, showing warnings on non-compliant names ([#99194](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/99194), [@pacoxu](https://github.com/pacoxu))

- Fixed the issue where logging output of kube-scheduler configuration files included line breaks and escape characters. The output also attempted to output the configuration file in one section without showing the user a more readable format. ([#106228](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/106228), [@sanchayanghosh](https://github.com/sanchayanghosh)) [SIG Scheduling]