change top_k algorithm (#7718)
runtime SIMD target detection for min/max/sum and impl SIMD mean ~2-5x (#7702)
implement top-k optimization (#7678)
ooc-sort dump in thread local if IO-thread is full. (#7668)
use perfect hash table for ooc partitioning (#7653)

✨ Enhancements

add dt.datetime, dt.date, dt.time (#7735)
new "row_totals" parameter for write_excel that adds a row-wise total column using structured references (#7751)
More ergonomic args for min/max (#7742)
More ergonomic args for concat_list (#7745)
add Series.hist (#7727)
add qcut (#7724)
add maintain_order option to Series.cut (#7723)
create series with only none list with specific dtype (#7722)
add maintain_order in arr.unique (#7721)
DataFrame.top_k/ LazyFrame.top_k (#7720)
clearer error message when replace_time_zone encounters ambiguous or non-existent datetimes (#7685)
include set_fmt_float value in Config load/save state (#7696)
raise on descending date_range arguments (#7671)
include add operator-equivalent expression (#7667)
add expression method equivalents for existing math/logical operators (#7660)
add is_leap_year to temporal expressions (#7618)
full out-of core support for streaming groupby (#7630)
clearer error message when creating duration string without integer (#7648)
allow scan_csv to take a list of column names in a new_columns param (#7642)
out-of-core groupby/unique of groupby on integer keys (#7604)
allow set and/or frozenset as input to is_in expressions (#7613)

🐞 Bug fixes

make zip_with_same_type obligatory (#7761)
fix melt projection pushdown node (#7752)
fix predicate pushdown for 'unique' first/last (#7749)
fix null propagation (#7748)
fix init from pandas Series that has no dtype and is empty (or contains only null values) (#7716)
avoid ambiguous time error when passing python Datetime to DataFrame constructor (#7711)
Fix infering CSV schema when skip_rows_after_heade… (#7701)
fix race condition in null handling of window fast… (#7695)
address Series init regression from list of np.arange objects (#7692)
improve error message if unavailable lazy module is queried for __version__ attribute (#7680)
fix reversed non-existant file error msg (#7657) (#7673)
respect time zone in groupby_rolling with negative offset (#7664)
fix empty case str.replace (#7662)
allow for list of datetimes with timezone(timedelta!=0) in Series constructor (#7645)
respect time zone in rolling_* functions (#7643)
fix schema of decimal type reads (#7652)
detect deltalake version in show_versions (#7622)
respect time zone in offset_by (#7626)
fix boolean Series init with integer 1/0 values (#7619)
respect time zone in dt.round (#7611)

🛠️ Other improvements

Display full argument names in __repr__ for Datetime a… (#7736)
add Expr.pipe API docs link (#7734)
Add sort_by example taking one row per group (#7712)
Clean up a few type hints/imports (#7687)
Move wrap_x utils to utils module (#7672)
Reduce number of polars.internals imports (#7628)
Remove duplicate column from Expr.sort example (#7684)
Move expr parsing to utils (#7661)
Eliminate function re-exports through internals (#7650)
Move last functionality out of internals (#7649)
More internals cleanup (#7638)
Update lockfile (#7637)
fix and improve type hints and function names (#7609)
remove additional logic from scan delta (#7605)

Thank you to all our contributors for making this release possible! @MarcoGorelli, @alexander-beedie, @borchero, @chitralverma, @didriksg, @ghuls, @jakob-keller, @minimav, @ritchie46, @stinodego, @universalmind303 and @zundertj