- Added new option to the `InterPodAffinity` scheduler plugin to ignore existing
  pods` preferred inter-pod affinities if the incoming pod has no preferred inter-pod
  affinities. This option can be used as an optimization for higher scheduling throughput
  (at the cost of an occasional pod being scheduled non-optimally/violating existing
  pods preferred inter-pod affinities). To enable this scheduler option, set the

- Fixed bug that caused a resource to include patch directives when using strategic merge patch against a non-existent field. ([#117568](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/117568), [@alexzielenski](https://github.com/alexzielenski))

* Add --no-negcache flag to kube-dns to prevent caching of NXDOMAIN responses. ([#66036](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/66036), [@prameshj](https://github.com/prameshj))
* fix data loss issue if using existing azure disk with partitions in disk mount  ([#63270](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/63270), [@andyzhangx](https://github.com/andyzhangx))

### Beta APIs Off by Default

[New beta APIs will not be enabled in clusters by default](https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/3136).
Existing beta APIs and new versions of existing beta APIs, will continue to be enabled by default.

### Signing Release Artifacts

EndpointSlices with Pod referencing Nodes that don't exist couldn't be created or updated. The behavior on the EndpointSlice controller has been modified to update the EndpointSlice without the Pods that reference non-existing Nodes and keep retrying until all Pods reference existing Nodes. However, if `service.Spec.PublishNotReadyAddresses` is set, all the Pods are published without retrying. Fixed EndpointSlices metrics to reflect correctly the number of desired EndpointSlices when no endpoints...

   ([#123372](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/123372), [@carl...

### API Change

- The Kubernetes API server now correctly detects and closes existing TLS connections when its client certificate file for kubelet authentication has been rotated. ([#115566](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/115566), [@enj](https://github.com/enj)) [SIG API Machinery, Node and Testing]