diff --git a/.github/CODEOWNERS b/.github/CODEOWNERS
index ae570eb01..76112476b 100644
--- a/.github/CODEOWNERS
+++ b/.github/CODEOWNERS
@@ -8,4 +8,4 @@
 *               @googleapis/api-bigquery @googleapis/yoshi-python
 
 # The python-samples-reviewers team is the default owner for samples changes
-/samples/   @googleapis/python-samples-owners
+/samples/   @googleapis/api-bigquery @googleapis/python-samples-owners
diff --git a/.github/sync-repo-settings.yaml b/.github/sync-repo-settings.yaml
index 2697f214c..8634a3043 100644
--- a/.github/sync-repo-settings.yaml
+++ b/.github/sync-repo-settings.yaml
@@ -3,7 +3,20 @@
 branchProtectionRules:
 # Identifies the protection rule pattern. Name of the branch to be protected.
 # Defaults to `master`
-- pattern: '{master,v3}'
+- pattern: master
+  requiresCodeOwnerReviews: true
+  requiresStrictStatusChecks: true
+  requiredStatusCheckContexts:
+    - 'Kokoro'
+    - 'Kokoro snippets-3.8'
+    - 'cla/google'
+    - 'Samples - Lint'
+    - 'Samples - Python 3.6'
+    - 'Samples - Python 3.7'
+    - 'Samples - Python 3.8'
+- pattern: v3
+  requiresCodeOwnerReviews: true
+  requiresStrictStatusChecks: true
   requiredStatusCheckContexts:
     - 'Kokoro'
     - 'Kokoro snippets-3.8'
diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 966a8744a..0c08e7910 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -5,6 +5,20 @@
 [1]: https://pypi.org/project/google-cloud-bigquery/#history
 
 
+### [2.23.2](https://www.github.com/googleapis/python-bigquery/compare/v2.23.1...v2.23.2) (2021-07-29)
+
+
+### Dependencies
+
+* expand pyarrow pins to support 5.x releases ([#833](https://www.github.com/googleapis/python-bigquery/issues/833)) ([80e3a61](https://www.github.com/googleapis/python-bigquery/commit/80e3a61c60419fb19b70b664c6415cd01ba82f5b))
+
+### [2.23.1](https://www.github.com/googleapis/python-bigquery/compare/v2.23.0...v2.23.1) (2021-07-28)
+
+
+### Bug Fixes
+
+* `insert_rows()` accepts float column values as strings again ([#824](https://www.github.com/googleapis/python-bigquery/issues/824)) ([d9378af](https://www.github.com/googleapis/python-bigquery/commit/d9378af13add879118a1d004529b811f72c325d6))
+
 ## [2.23.0](https://www.github.com/googleapis/python-bigquery/compare/v2.22.1...v2.23.0) (2021-07-27)
 
 
diff --git a/google/cloud/bigquery/_helpers.py b/google/cloud/bigquery/_helpers.py
index 3d83ddee9..cb2ce40a3 100644
--- a/google/cloud/bigquery/_helpers.py
+++ b/google/cloud/bigquery/_helpers.py
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@
 import decimal
 import math
 import re
+from typing import Union
 
 from google.cloud._helpers import UTC
 from google.cloud._helpers import _date_from_iso8601_date
@@ -312,14 +313,15 @@ def _int_to_json(value):
     return value
 
 
-def _float_to_json(value):
+def _float_to_json(value) -> Union[None, str, float]:
     """Coerce 'value' to an JSON-compatible representation."""
     if value is None:
         return None
-    elif math.isnan(value) or math.isinf(value):
-        return str(value)
-    else:
-        return float(value)
+
+    if isinstance(value, str):
+        value = float(value)
+
+    return str(value) if (math.isnan(value) or math.isinf(value)) else float(value)
 
 
 def _decimal_to_json(value):
diff --git a/google/cloud/bigquery/version.py b/google/cloud/bigquery/version.py
index 416bf20ed..0460e7bb9 100644
--- a/google/cloud/bigquery/version.py
+++ b/google/cloud/bigquery/version.py
@@ -12,4 +12,4 @@
 # See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 # limitations under the License.
 
-__version__ = "2.23.0"
+__version__ = "2.23.2"
diff --git a/samples/geography/requirements.txt b/samples/geography/requirements.txt
index 3a83eda64..5aa967b24 100644
--- a/samples/geography/requirements.txt
+++ b/samples/geography/requirements.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
 geojson==2.5.0
-google-cloud-bigquery==2.22.1
-google-cloud-bigquery-storage==2.6.0
+google-cloud-bigquery==2.23.2
+google-cloud-bigquery-storage==2.6.2
 Shapely==1.7.1
diff --git a/samples/snippets/requirements-test.txt b/samples/snippets/requirements-test.txt
index 9e9d4e40f..b8dee50d0 100644
--- a/samples/snippets/requirements-test.txt
+++ b/samples/snippets/requirements-test.txt
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
-google-cloud-testutils==0.3.0
+google-cloud-testutils==1.0.0
 pytest==6.2.4
 mock==4.0.3
diff --git a/samples/snippets/requirements.txt b/samples/snippets/requirements.txt
index ffa689a9e..4f2eaf90b 100644
--- a/samples/snippets/requirements.txt
+++ b/samples/snippets/requirements.txt
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-google-cloud-bigquery==2.22.1
-google-cloud-bigquery-storage==2.6.0
-google-auth-oauthlib==0.4.4
+google-cloud-bigquery==2.23.2
+google-cloud-bigquery-storage==2.6.2
+google-auth-oauthlib==0.4.5
 grpcio==1.39.0
 ipython==7.16.1; python_version < '3.7'
 ipython==7.17.0; python_version >= '3.7'
@@ -8,5 +8,5 @@ matplotlib==3.3.4; python_version < '3.7'
 matplotlib==3.4.1; python_version >= '3.7'
 pandas==1.1.5; python_version < '3.7'
 pandas==1.2.0; python_version >= '3.7'
-pyarrow==4.0.1
+pyarrow==5.0.0
 pytz==2021.1
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 91458bb78..5205b5365 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@
     "google-resumable-media >= 0.6.0, < 3.0dev",
     "packaging >= 14.3",
     "protobuf >= 3.12.0",
-    "pyarrow >= 3.0.0, < 5.0dev",
+    "pyarrow >= 3.0.0, < 6.0dev",
     "requests >= 2.18.0, < 3.0.0dev",
 ]
 extras = {
diff --git a/tests/system/test_pandas.py b/tests/system/test_pandas.py
index 4b1828c86..6a96dff62 100644
--- a/tests/system/test_pandas.py
+++ b/tests/system/test_pandas.py
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@
 import io
 import operator
 
+import google.api_core.retry
 import pkg_resources
 import pytest
 import pytz
@@ -37,6 +38,10 @@
 PANDAS_INT64_VERSION = pkg_resources.parse_version("1.0.0")
 
 
+class MissingDataError(Exception):
+    pass
+
+
 def test_load_table_from_dataframe_w_automatic_schema(bigquery_client, dataset_id):
     """Test that a DataFrame with dtypes that map well to BigQuery types
     can be uploaded without specifying a schema.
@@ -657,19 +662,6 @@ def test_insert_rows_from_dataframe(bigquery_client, dataset_id):
     )
     for errors in chunk_errors:
         assert not errors
-
-    # Use query to fetch rows instead of listing directly from the table so
-    # that we get values from the streaming buffer.
-    rows = list(
-        bigquery_client.query(
-            "SELECT * FROM `{}.{}.{}`".format(
-                table.project, table.dataset_id, table.table_id
-            )
-        )
-    )
-
-    sorted_rows = sorted(rows, key=operator.attrgetter("int_col"))
-    row_tuples = [r.values() for r in sorted_rows]
     expected = [
         # Pandas often represents NULL values as NaN. Convert to None for
         # easier comparison.
@@ -677,7 +669,27 @@ def test_insert_rows_from_dataframe(bigquery_client, dataset_id):
         for data_row in dataframe.itertuples(index=False)
     ]
 
-    assert len(row_tuples) == len(expected)
+    # Use query to fetch rows instead of listing directly from the table so
+    # that we get values from the streaming buffer "within a few seconds".
+    # https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/streaming-data-into-bigquery#dataavailability
+    @google.api_core.retry.Retry(
+        predicate=google.api_core.retry.if_exception_type(MissingDataError)
+    )
+    def get_rows():
+        rows = list(
+            bigquery_client.query(
+                "SELECT * FROM `{}.{}.{}`".format(
+                    table.project, table.dataset_id, table.table_id
+                )
+            )
+        )
+        if len(rows) != len(expected):
+            raise MissingDataError()
+        return rows
+
+    rows = get_rows()
+    sorted_rows = sorted(rows, key=operator.attrgetter("int_col"))
+    row_tuples = [r.values() for r in sorted_rows]
 
     for row, expected_row in zip(row_tuples, expected):
         assert (
diff --git a/tests/unit/test__helpers.py b/tests/unit/test__helpers.py
index aaafdb0f7..cf60cf749 100644
--- a/tests/unit/test__helpers.py
+++ b/tests/unit/test__helpers.py
@@ -653,21 +653,45 @@ def _call_fut(self, value):
     def test_w_none(self):
         self.assertEqual(self._call_fut(None), None)
 
+    def test_w_non_numeric(self):
+        with self.assertRaises(TypeError):
+            self._call_fut(object())
+
+    def test_w_integer(self):
+        result = self._call_fut(123)
+        self.assertIsInstance(result, float)
+        self.assertEqual(result, 123.0)
+
     def test_w_float(self):
         self.assertEqual(self._call_fut(1.23), 1.23)
 
+    def test_w_float_as_string(self):
+        self.assertEqual(self._call_fut("1.23"), 1.23)
+
     def test_w_nan(self):
         result = self._call_fut(float("nan"))
         self.assertEqual(result.lower(), "nan")
 
+    def test_w_nan_as_string(self):
+        result = self._call_fut("NaN")
+        self.assertEqual(result.lower(), "nan")
+
     def test_w_infinity(self):
         result = self._call_fut(float("inf"))
         self.assertEqual(result.lower(), "inf")
 
+    def test_w_infinity_as_string(self):
+        result = self._call_fut("inf")
+        self.assertEqual(result.lower(), "inf")
+
     def test_w_negative_infinity(self):
         result = self._call_fut(float("-inf"))
         self.assertEqual(result.lower(), "-inf")
 
+    def test_w_negative_infinity_as_string(self):
+        result = self._call_fut("-inf")
+        self.assertEqual(result.lower(), "-inf")
+
 
 class Test_decimal_to_json(unittest.TestCase):
     def _call_fut(self, value):