pod from the API) the user must now provide the `--force` flag in addition to `--grace-period=0`.  This prevents users from accidentally force deleting pods without being aware of the consequences of force deletion.  Force deleting pods for resources like StatefulSets can result in multiple pods with the same name having running processes in the cluster, which may lead to data corruption or data inconsistency when using shared storage or common API endpoints. ([#35484](https://github.com/kubernetes...

* Make sure finalizers prevent deletion on storage that supports graceful deletion ([#32351](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/32351), [@caesarxuchao](https://github.com/caesarxuchao))

external cloud providers now waits for the providerID value to be available before untainting it. This ensures that nodes are not declared Ready without necessary information such as the providerID and zone labels, which are required for integrations like load balancers to function correctly. Cloud providers that do not implement the GetInstanceProviderID method will not require the providerID to be set and will not fail to initialize the node for backward compatibility. ([#123713](https://github.c...