eases" target="_blank">Releases</a>.</p>

<p>This release contains refinements, improvements, and bug fixes, with highlights listed below.</p>

<h2 id="core">Core</h2>

<ul>
<li>[Deps] Backport: Protobuf upgrade to v26.1. (<a href="https://github.com/grpc/grpc/pull/36353" target="_blank">#36353</a>)</li>
<li>[OTel C++] Add experimental optional locality label available to client per-attempt metrics. (<a href="https://github.com/grpc/grpc/pull/36254" target="_blank">#36254</a>)</li>
<li>[surface] Add an API 