Website: Add blog post for 16.1.0

_posts/2024-05-14-16.1.0-release.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Apache Arrow 16.1.0 Release"
+date: "2024-05-14 00:00:00"
+author: pmc
+categories: [release]
+---
+<!--
+{% comment %}
+Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
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+(the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
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+http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
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+WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
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+{% endcomment %}
+-->
+
+
+The Apache Arrow team is pleased to announce the 16.1.0 release.
+This is a minor release that includes [**34 resolved issues**][1]
+from [**16 distinct contributors**][2]. See the Install Page to learn how to get the libraries for your platform.
+
+The release notes below are not exhaustive and only expose selected highlights
+of the release. Other bugfixes and improvements have been made: we refer
+you to the [complete changelog][3].
+
+
+## C++ notes
+
+The scratch space required by some `Scalar` subclasses is now immutable after
+initialization ([GH-40069](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/40069)). This fixes thread-safety bugs when this scratch
+space was lazily initialized, but introduces an API incompatibility because
+writing to the `value` member of some concrete `Scalar` subclasses is not
+allowed anymore. Affected classes include `BaseBinaryScalar`, `BaseListScalar`,
+`SparseUnionScalar`, `DenseUnionScalar` and `RunEndEncodedScalar`.
+
+The `bit_width` and `byte_width` methods on `ExtensionType` now return the
+corresponding value for the underlying storage type ([GH-41353](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/41353)).
+
+### Parquet
+
+A regression that prevented reading BYTE_STREAM_SPLIT columns with null values
+was fixed ([GH-41562](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/41562)).
+
+## C# notes
+* Recompute a sliced array's null count on demand when it is unknown ([GH-41136](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/41136))
+* Support writing sliced arrays in the Arrow IPC format ([GH-40517](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/40517), [GH-41225](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/41225), [GH-41231](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/41231))
+* Bug fixes for union array behaviour ([GH-41137](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/41137), [GH-41140](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/41140))
+
+## Go Notes
+
+* Enable support for reading date64 from CSV ([GH-41594](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/41594))
+* Update MarshalJSON() for Float32 and Float64 to be able to handle NaN, +Inf and -Inf values ([GH-40563](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/40563))
+
+## JavaScript notes
+
+* Store Timestamps in 64 bits ([GH-40959](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/40959))
+* Update JS dependencies ([GH-40989](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/40989))
+* Add at() for array like types ([GH-39131](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/39131))
+* Refactor imports ([GH-39482](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/39482))
+
+
+[1]: https://github.com/apache/arrow/milestone/63?closed=1
+[2]: {{ site.baseurl }}/release/16.1.0.html#contributors
+[3]: {{ site.baseurl }}/release/16.1.0.html#changelog