Searching for New Physics with Flavor Violating Observables

In this talk, I review the status and prospects of several low energy flavor observables that are highly sensitive to New Physics effects. In particular I discuss the implications for possible New Physics in b --> s transitions coming from the recent experimental results on the B_s mixing phase, the branching ratio of the rare decay B_s --> mu+mu-, and angular observables in the B --> K* mu+mu- decay. Also the recent evidence for direct CP violation in singly Cabibbo suppressed charm decays and its interpretation in the context of New Physics models is briefly discussed