- The `BalancedAllocation` plugin now skips all best-effort (zero-requested) pods. ([#130260](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/130260), [@Bowser1704](https://github.com/Bowser1704))
- The following roles have had `Watch` added to them (prefixed with `system:controller:`):
  
  - `cronjob-controller`
  - `endpoint-controller`
  - `endpointslice-controller`
  - `endpointslicemirroring-controller`

* Alpha version of "Role Based Access Control" API. ([#25634](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/25634), [@ericchiang](https://github.com/ericchiang))

#### AWS

- Updated the Kubernetes build environment to use Go `1.24.5`. ([#132896](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/132896), [@cpanato](https://github.com/cpanato)) [SIG Release and Testing]
- Updated the built in `system:monitoring` role with permission to access kubelet metrics endpoints. ([#132178](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/132178), [@gavinkflam](https://github.com/gavinkflam)) [SIG Auth]

- Kubeadm: stop applying the `node-role.kubernetes.io/master:NoSchedule` taint to control plane nodes for new clusters. Remove the taint from existing control plane nodes during "kubeadm upgrade apply" ([#110095](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/110095), [@neolit123](https:...

- Kubeadm: removed the toleration for the `node-role.kubernetes.io/master` taint from the CoreDNS deployment of `kubeadm`. With the 1.25 release of kubeadm the taint `node-role.kubernetes.io/master` is no longer applied to control plane nodes and the toleration for it can be removed with the release of 1.26. You can also perform the same toleration removal from...

- Fixed a regression preventing garbage collection of RBAC role and binding objects ([#90534](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/90534), [@apelisse](https://github.com/apelisse)) [SIG Auth]

- E2e framework: the `node-role.kubernetes.io/master` taint has been removed from the default value of `--non-blocking-taints` flag. You may need to set `--non-blocking-taints` explicitly if the cluster to be tested has nodes with the deprecated `node-role.kubernetes.io/master` taint. ([#118510](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/118510), [@SataQiu](https://github.com/SataQiu)) [SIG...

- Fixed a regression preventing garbage collection of RBAC role and binding objects ([#90534](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/90534), [@apelisse](https://github.com/apelisse)) [SIG Auth]

- Dropped the additional rule requirement (cronjobs/finalizers) for roles
  using kubectl create cronjobs to ensure backward compatibility. ([#124883](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/124883), [@ardaguclu](https://github.com/ardaguclu))