  The BABAR experiment participates to the global endeavor for a precise
prediction of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon by evaluating the
contribution of hadronic processes to the vacuum polarization. After its last
result published in 2009 and 2012, BABAR is preparing a new independent
measurement of the $e^+e^- \rightarrow \pi^+\pi^-(\gamma)$ cross section via
initial state radiation, with full data statistics and improved uncertainties.
A first milestone was reached with the recent study of additional radiations in
$e^+e^- \rightarrow \pi^+\pi^-(\gamma)$ and $e^+e^- \rightarrow
\mu^+\mu^-(\gamma)$, which uncovered shortcomings of the Phokhara Monte Carlo
generator in one-photon rates and angular distributions. This has practically
no effect on the previous BABAR measurement, but could explain longstanding
discrepancies with other experiments.
