- Graduating `pending_pods`, `preemption_attempts_total`, `preemption_victims` and `schedule_attempts_total` metrics to stable. Also `e2e_scheduling_duration_seconds` is renamed to `scheduling_attempt_duration_seconds` and the latter is graduated to stable. ([#105941](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/105941), [@rezakrimi](https://github.com/rezakrimi)) [SIG Instrumentation, Scheduling and Testing]

- New `node-high` priority-level has been added to Suggested API Priority and Fairness configuration.([#101151](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/101151), [@mborsz](https://github.com/mborsz))
- NodeSwapEnabled feature flag was renamed to NodeSwap
  

ConfigMap rendering [issue](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/112081) was found in the 1.25.0 release. When ConfigMaps get updated within the API, they do not get rendered to the resulting pod's filesystem by the Kubelet. The feature has been [reverted to alpha](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/112078) in the 1.25.1 release.

## Urgent Upgrade Notes

The Horizontal Pod Autoscaler changes include support for status conditions, and autoscaling on memory and custom metrics.

* The metrics APIs, `custom-metrics.metrics.k8s.io` and `metrics`, were moved from `v1alpha1` to `v1beta1`, and renamed to `custom.metrics.k8s.io` and `metrics.k8s.io`, respectively. If you have deployed a custom metrics adapter, ensure that it supports the new API version. If you have deployed Heapster in aggregated API server mode, upgrade Heapster to support the...

* Adding vishh as an reviewer/approver for hack directory ([#54007](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/54007), [@vishh](https://github.com/vishh))

- Enabled use of pods with volumes and user namespaces. The feature gate was renamed from `UserNamespacesStatelessPodsSupport` to `UserNamespacesSupport`. ([#118691](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/118691), [@giuseppe](https://github.com/giuseppe))

- Kubeadm: Switched kubeadm to start using the CRI client library instead of shelling out of the `crictl` binary...

- Kube-apiserver now maintains a Lease object to identify itself: 
  - The feature is under feature gate `APIServerIdentity`. 
  - Two flags are added to kube-apiserver: `identity-lease-duration-seconds`, `identity-lease-renew-interval-seconds` ([#95533](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/95533), [@roycaihw](https://github.com/roycaihw)) [SIG API Machinery]

* Fix error in `kubeadm join --discovery-file` when using discovery files with embedded credentials ([#80675](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/80675), [@fabriziopandini](https://github.com/fabriziopandini))
* make node lease renew interval more heuristic based on node-status-update-frequency in kubelet ([#80173](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/80173), [@gaorong](https://github.com/gaorong))

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