New measurements of pion‐nucleus total cross sections have been made at LAMPF and BNL. The results from LAMPF include measurement of the difference of the rms neutron and proton radii of48Ca to be 0.08±0.02 and that of180 to be 0.19±0.02. The BNL measurements provide a new phenomenology on the downshift and spreading of the (3–3) resonance in nuclei from the first data on heavy nuclei. A new technique for handling the Coulomb effects in total cross‐section measurements is discussed.