* Finalizers are now honored on custom resources, and on other resources even when garbage collection is disabled via the apiserver flag `--enable-garbage-collector=false` ([#51148](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/51148), [@ironcladlou](https://github.com/ironcladlou))

* Allow kubernetes components to react to SIGTERM signal and shutdown gracefully. ([#57756](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/57756), [@mborsz](https://github.com/mborsz))

#### Garbage Collector
* The garbage collector now supports custom APIs added via Custom Resource Definitions
  or aggregated API servers. The garbage collector controller refreshes periodically.
  Therefore, expect a latency of about 30 seconds between when an API is added and when
  the garbage collector starts to manage it.


#### Monitoring/Prometheus

- Fixed garbage collection of dangling VolumeAttachments for PersistentVolumes migrated to CSI on startup of kube-controller-manager. ([#102176](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/102176), [@timebertt](https://github.com/timebertt)) [SIG Apps and Storage]

- Removed the following deprecated metrics:
  - node_collector_evictions_number replaced by node_collector_evictions_total

FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

- Fixed a panic in the node status update logic when existing node has nil labels. ([#66307](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/66307), [@guoshimin](https://github.com/guoshimin))
- Fix the bug where image garbage collection is disabled by mistake. ([#66051](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/66051), [@jiaxuanzhou](https://github.com/jiaxuanzhou))

- Fixing race condition with EndpointSlice controller garbage collection. ([#91311](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/91311), [@robscott](https://github.com/robscott)) [SIG Apps, Network and Testing]