A short review of both theoretical and experimental aspects
of the radiative return method is presented. It is emphasised
that the method gives not only possibility of the independent
from the scan method measurement of the hadronic cross section,
but also can provide information concerning details of the hadronic
interactions. New developments in the PHOKHARA event generator
are also reviewed. The 3 pion and kaon pair production is implemented
within the version 5.0 of the program, together with contributions
of the radiative $\phi$ decays to the 2 pion final states.
Missing NLO radiative corrections to the $e^+e^- \to \mu^+\mu^- \gamma$
process will be implemented in the forthcoming version of the generator.
