- Performance improvements in `klog` ([#115277](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/115277), [@pohly](https://github.com/pohly))
- Pod template `schedulingGates` are now mutable for Jobs that are suspended and have never been started ([#115940](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/115940), [@ahg-g](https://github.com/ahg-g)) [SIG Apps]

* On AWS kubelet returns an error when started under conditions that do not allow it to work (AWS has not yet tagged the instance). ([#60125](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/60125), [@vainu-arto](https://github.com/vainu-arto))

- 'Graduated `JobTrackingWithFinalizers` to stable.
  Jobs created before the feature was enabled are still tracked without finalizers.
  Jobs tracked with finalizers have the annotation batch.kubernetes.io/job-tracking.
  If the annotation is present and the user attempts to remove it, the control plane adds it back.

- Added a new scheduler metric, `pod_scheduling_sli_duration_seconds`, and started the deprecation for `pod_scheduling_duration_seconds`. ([#119049](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/119049), [@helayoty](https://github.com/helayoty))