- CSINode initialization does not crash kubelet on startup when APIServer is not reachable or kubelet has not the right credentials yet. ([#89589](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/89589), [@jsafrane](https://github.com/jsafrane)) [SIG Storage]

- Fixed a 1.28 regression around restarting init containers in the right order relative to normal containers ([#120440](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/120440), [@gjkim42](https://github.com/gjkim42)) [SIG Node and Testing]

For more information and for updates on resolution of this issue, see [#51899](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/51899).

 - CSINode initialization does not crash kubelet on startup when APIServer is not reachable or kubelet has not the right credentials yet. ([#89589](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/89589), [@jsafrane](https://github.com/jsafrane)) [SIG Storage]

- Fixes issue [#68899](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/68899) where pods might schedule on an unschedulable node. ([#68984](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/68984), [@k82cn](https://github.com/k82cn))

### Not Very Notable (that is, non-user-facing)

- Overall, enable the feature of `PreferNominatedNode` will  improve the performance of scheduling where preemption might frequently happen, but in theory, enable the feature of `PreferNominatedNode`, the pod might not be scheduled to the best candidate node in the cluster. ([#93179](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/93179), [@chendave](https://github.com/chendave)) [SIG Scheduling and Testing]

For initial installations, see the [Setup topics](https://kubernetes.io/docs/setup/pick-right-solution/) in the Kubernetes documentation.

### Bug or Regression

- Fixes a race condition in the iptables mode of kube-proxy in 1.27 and later
  that could result in some updates getting lost (e.g., when a service gets a
  new endpoint, the rules for the new endpoint might not be added until
  much later). ([#122815](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/122815), [@wedaly](https://github.com/wedaly)) [SIG Network]

    * action required: Cloud providers other than GCE might want to update their deployments or sample yaml files to reuse the role created via add-on.

### Other notable changes

- Fixed a bug around restarting init containers in the right order relative to normal containers with `SidecarContainers` feature enabled. ([#120269](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/120269), [@gjkim42](https://github.com/gjkim42))