- 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]

* Fixed controller manager crash by making it tolerant to discovery errors.([#49767](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/49767), [@deads2k](https://github.com/deads2k))

* 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))

- 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))

* 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))

* 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))

          std::vector<string>(desc->colocation_constraints.begin(),
                              desc->colocation_constraints.end()));
    }
    status->status = desc->node_builder.Finalize(&desc->graph->graph, &ret,
                                                 /*consume=*/true);

    if (status->status.ok()) {
      // Run shape inference function for newly added node.

* 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))

- 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]

- 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),...