### Bug or Regression

- Added jitter factor to lease controller that better smears load on kube-apiserver over time. ([#101652](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/101652), [@marseel](https://github.com/marseel)) [SIG API Machinery and Scalability]

- Reverted the previous fix for portforward cleanup because it introduced a kubelet regression which can lead into segmentation faults. ([#102588](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/102588), [@saschagrunert](https://github.com/saschagrunert)) [SIG API Machinery and Node]

### Other (Cleanup or Flake)

- Fixes a spurious "namespace not found" error possible in default configurations in 1.30+ when using ValidatingAdmissionPolicy or MutatingAdmissionPolicy to intercept namespaced objects in newly-created namespaces ([#135443](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/135443), [@lalitc375](https://github.com/lalitc375)) [SIG API Machinery]

- Kube-apiserver: fixes a potential crash serving CustomResourceDefinitions that combine an invalid schema and CEL validation rules. ([#126167](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/126167), [@cici37](https://github.com/cici37)) [SIG API Machinery and Testing]

- Fix a panic when using invalid output format in kubectl create secret command ([#107345](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/107345), [@rikatz](https://github.com/rikatz)) [SIG CLI]
- Fixes a rare race condition handling requests that timeout ([#107460](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/107460), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt)) [SIG API Machinery]

- Restore --verify-only function in code generation wrappers. ([#123261](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/123261), [@skitt](https://github.com/skitt)) [SIG API Machinery]
- Sample-apiserver manifest example will have correct RBAC ([#123479](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/123479), [@Jefftree](https://github.com/Jefftree)) [SIG API Machinery and Testing]

- Mark Job onPodConditions as optional in pod failure policy ([#120210](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/120210), [@mimowo](https://github.com/mimowo)) [SIG API Machinery and Apps]

### Feature

- Update the Event series starting count when emitting isomorphic events from 1 to 2. ([#119376](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/119376), [@dgrisonnet](https://github.com/dgrisonnet)) [SIG API Machinery and Testing]

## Dependencies

### Added
_Nothing has changed._

### Changed

- API server's deprecated `--experimental-encryption-provider-config` flag is now removed. Adapt your machinery to use the `--encryption-provider-config` flag that is available since v1.13. ([#108423](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/108423), [@ialidzhikov](https://github.com/ialidzhikov)) [SIG API Machinery]

    - [Stable](#stable)
    - [Beta](#beta)
    - [CLI Improvements](#cli-improvements)
  - [API Changes](#api-changes)
  - [Other notable changes](#other-notable-changes-1)
    - [API Machinery](#api-machinery)
    - [Apps](#apps)
    - [Auth](#auth)
    - [CLI](#cli)
    - [Cloud Provider](#cloud-provider)
    - [Cluster Lifecycle](#cluster-lifecycle-1)
    - [Instrumentation](#instrumentation)