- `kube-scheduler` implements scheduling hints for the `NodeAffinity` plugin.
  The scheduling hints allow the scheduler to only retry scheduling a `Pod`

* GCE PD volume plugin now supports block volumes. ([#58710](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/58710), [@screeley44](https://github.com/screeley44))

* Implements MountDevice and UnmountDevice for the CSI Plugin, the functions will call through to NodeStageVolume/NodeUnstageVolume for CSI plugins. ([#60115](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/60115), [@davidz627](https://github.com/davidz627))

  
  This change implements a deep copy of the `Fields` map for each composition environment, ensuring thread safety.
  
  ### Issue

- `wait.ContextForChannel()` now implements the context.Context interface and
  does not return a cancellation function. ([#115140](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/115140), [@smarterclayton](https://github.com/smarterclayton))

## Dependencies

* Implements rolling update for StatefulSets. Updates can be performed using the RollingUpdate, Paritioned, or OnDelete strategies. OnDelete implements the manual behavior from 1.6. status now tracks  ([#46669](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/46669), [@kow3ns](https://github.com/kow3ns))

- The NodeAffinity plugin implements the PreFilter extension, offering enhanced performance for Filter. ([#99213](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/99213), [@AliceZhang2016](https://github.com/AliceZhang2016)) [SIG Scheduling]

    to learn more.
*   Adds optional `exclude_cols` parameter to CsvDataset. This parameter is the
    complement of `select_cols`; at most one of these should be specified.
*   We have implemented an optimization which reorders data-discarding
    transformations such as `take` and `shard` to happen earlier in the dataset

### Deprecation of klog specific flags

To simplify the code base, several [logging flags got marked as deprecated](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/cluster-administration/system-logs/#klog) in Kubernetes 1.23.
The code which implements them will be removed in a future release, so users of those need to start replacing the deprecated flags with some alternative solutions.

### Software Supply Chain SLSA Level 1 Compliance in the Kubernetes Release Process

* Extends the VolumeSubpathEnvExpansion alpha feature to support environment variable expansion ([#71351](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/71351), [@kevtaylor](https://github.com/kevtaylor))
    * Implements subPathExpr field for expanding environment variables into a subPath
    * The fields subPathExpr and subPath are mutually exclusive
    * Note: This is a breaking change from the previous version of this alpha feature

*   [alpha] [rktlet](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/rktlet): CRI implementation for the rkt runtime is now v0.1.0. [[@iaguis](https://github.com/iaguis)]
    *   This is the first release of rktlet and it implements support for the CRI including fetching images, running pods, CNI networking, logging and exec.
This release passes 129/145 Kubernetes e2e conformance tests.