* When a namespace is being deleted and spec.finalizers are still being processed, stop returning a 409 conflict error and instead return the object as we would during metadata.finalizer processing. ([#84122](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/84122), [@smarterclayton](https://github.com/smarterclayton))

- `metadata.deletionTimestamp` is no longer moved into the future when issuing repeated DELETE requests against a resource containing a finalizer. ([#73138](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/73138), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt))

- Finalizer Protection for Service LoadBalancers (ServiceLoadBalancerFinalizer) has been added as an Alpha feature, which is disabled by default. This feature ensures the Service resource is not fully deleted until the correlating load balancer resources are...

- kube-apiserver: the `StorageObjectInUseProtection` admission plugin added the `kubernetes.io/vac-protection` finalizer to the given VolumeAttributesClass object when it is created if the feature-gate `VolumeAttributesClass` is turned on and `storage.k8s.io/v1beta1` is enabled. ([#130553](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/130553), [@Phaow](https://github.com/Phaow))...

- Finalizer Protection for Service LoadBalancers is now in beta (enabled by default). This feature ensures the Service resource is not fully deleted until the correlating load balancer resources are deleted. ([#81691](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/81691),...

### Bug or Regression

- Fix Job tracking with finalizers for more than 500 pods, ensuring all finalizers are removed before counting the Pod. ([#104876](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/104876), [@alculquicondor](https://github.com/alculquicondor)) [SIG Apps]

- Volume snapshot e2e test to validate PVC and VolumeSnapshotContent finalizer ([#95863](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/95863), [@RaunakShah](https://github.com/RaunakShah)) [SIG Cloud Provider, Storage and Testing]

* Add support for adding/removing finalizer depending on PVC protection feature gate ([#61370](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/61370), [@gnufied](https://github.com/gnufied))

* In case StorageObjectInUse feature is disabled and Persistent Volume (PV) or Persistent Volume Claim (PVC) contains a finalizer and the PV or PVC is deleted it is not automatically removed from the system. Now, it is automatically removed. ([#62938](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/62938), [@pospispa](https://github.com/pospispa))

- Fixes a bug where Services using finalizers may hold onto ClusterIP and/or NodePort allocated resources for longer than expected if the finalizer is removed using the status subresource ([#120655](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/120655), [@aojea](https://github.com/aojea)) [SIG Network and Testing]