Apache Kafka 2.4.0 has been released with several key new features and improvements, including support for reading from follower replicas in multi-datacenter deployments, incremental cooperative rebalancing for consumer groups, and a new partitioner that helps improve message batching and reduce latency. The release also includes enhancements to the Kafka remote procedure call (RPC) protocol, such as optional tagged fields and more efficient serialization of variable-length objects. Additionally, this version introduces a new Java authorizer API with improved security features and better support for asynchronous ACL updates. Other notable improvements include support for default broker configurations during topic creation, retained completed fetch data when partitions are paused, and out-of-the-box authentication and authorization for Connect workers. The release also includes several other feature enhancements and bug fixes, making it a significant update for Kafka users.