- Adds feature gate `NodeLogQuery` which provides cluster administrators with a streaming view of logs using kubectl without them having to implement a client side reader or logging into the node. ([#96120](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/96120), [@LorbusChris](https://github.com/LorbusChris))

* Fix metrics API group name in audit configuration ([#53493](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/53493), [@piosz](https://github.com/piosz))
* Use separate client for leader election in scheduler to avoid starving leader election by regular scheduler operations. ([#53793](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/53793), [@wojtek-t](https://github.com/wojtek-t))

- The deprecated flag `--lock-object-namespace` and `--lock-object-name` have been removed from kube-scheduler. Please use `--leader-elect-resource-namespace` and `--leader-elect-resource-name` or ComponentConfig instead to configure those parameters. ([#119130](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/119130), [@SataQiu](https://github.com/SataQiu)) [SIG Scheduling]

### Bug or Regression

- Client-go: fixes potential data races retrying requests using a custom io.Reader body; with this fix, only requests with no body or with string / []byte / runtime.Object bodies can be retried ([#113933](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/113933), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt)) [SIG API Machinery]

### Bug or Regression

- Client-go: fixes potential data races retrying requests using a custom io.Reader body; with this fix, only requests with no body or with string / []byte / runtime.Object bodies can be retried ([#113933](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/113933), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt)) [SIG API Machinery]

- Client-go: Optimized leaders renewing leases by updating leader lock optimistically without getting the record from the API server first. Also, a new metric `leader_election_slowpath_total` was added to allow users to monitor how many leader elections are updated non-optimistically.