* Configurable etcd compaction frequency in GCE ([#59106](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/59106), [@wojtek-t](https://github.com/wojtek-t))
* [GCE] Apiserver uses `InternalIP` as the most preferred kubelet address type by default. ([#59019](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/59019), [@MrHohn](https://github.com/MrHohn))

* Prevent kubelet from getting wedged if initialization of modules returns an error. ([#59020](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/59020), [@brendandburns](https://github.com/brendandburns))
* [GCE] Apiserver uses `InternalIP` as the most preferred kubelet address type by default. ([#59019](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/59019), [@MrHohn](https://github.com/MrHohn))

</li>

<li>
Converting a slice of runes to a string type yields
a string that is the concatenation of the individual rune values
converted to strings.

<pre>
string([]rune{0x767d, 0x9d6c, 0x7fd4})   // "\u767d\u9d6c\u7fd4" == "白鵬翔"
string([]rune{})                         // ""
string([]rune(nil))                      // ""

type runes []rune

### Other notable changes

* [GCE] Apiserver uses `InternalIP` as the most preferred kubelet address type by default. ([#59019](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/59019), [@MrHohn](https://github.com/MrHohn))

- kubeadm init correctly uses `--node-name` and `--cri-socket` when `--config` option is also used ([#71323](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/71323), [@bart0sh](https://github.com/bart0sh))
- kubeadm: Always pass spec.nodeName as `--hostname-override` for kube-proxy ([#71283](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/71283), [@Klaven](https://github.com/Klaven))

* Forgiveness alpha version api definition ([#39469](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/39469), [@kevin-wangzefeng](https://github.com/kevin-wangzefeng))
* Rescheduler uses taints in v1beta1 and will remove old ones (in version v1alpha1) right after its start. ([#43106](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/43106), [@piosz](https://github.com/piosz))

### Volumes

- Changed how KMS v2 encryption at rest can generate data encryption keys.

- Base-images: Update to debian-iptables:buster-v1.4.0
  - Uses iptables 1.8.5
  - base-images: Update to debian-base:buster-v1.3.0
  - cluster/images/etcd: Build etcd:3.4.13-2 image
    - Uses debian-base:buster-v1.3.0 ([#98401](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/98401), [@pacoxu](https://github.com/pacoxu)) [SIG Testing]

- Text logging in Kubernetes components now uses [textlogger](https://pkg.go.dev/k8s.io/klog/v2@v2.120.0/textlogger). The same split streams of info and error log entries with buffering of info entries is now also supported for text output (off by default, alpha feature). Previously, this was only...

- Kubeadm: ensured waiting for apiserver uses a local client that doesn't reach to the control plane endpoint and instead reaches directly to the local API server endpoint. ([#134270](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/134270), [@neolit123](https://github.com/neolit123)) [SIG Cluster...