- 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 ([#120657](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/120657), [@aojea](https://github.com/aojea)) [SIG Network and Testing]

### 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]

* 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))

* The OwnerReferencesPermissionEnforcement admission plugin now requires `update` permission on the `finalizers` subresource of the referenced owner in order to set `blockOwnerDeletion` on an owner reference. ([#49133](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/49133), [@deads2k](https://github.com/deads2k))

- Fix job tracking with finalizers for more than 500 pods, ensuring all finalizers are removed before counting the Pod. ([#104666](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/104666), [@alculquicondor](https://github.com/alculquicondor))

- `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))

* Add garbage collector into kube-controller-manager ([#26341](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/26341), [@caesarxuchao](https://github.com/caesarxuchao))
* Add orphaning finalizer logic to GC ([#25599](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/25599), [@caesarxuchao](https://github.com/caesarxuchao))

- 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]

* Fix for [failure to delete federation controllers with finalizers](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/43828). ([#44084](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/44084), [@nikhiljindal](https://github.com/nikhiljindal))

- 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),...