Staff, wire reports

Sears will close another 72 stores as sales plunge and losses grow, but the store inside the Eastwood Mall is not on the latest list.

The beleaguered retailer said that it has identified about 100 stores that are no longer turning a profit, and the majority of those locations will be shuttered soon.

A company spokesman confirmed the anchor store at the mall in Niles is not slated to close.

Sears lost $424 million, or $3.93 per share, for the period ended May 5. It earned $245 million, or $2.29 per share, a year earlier, a quarter that included a $492 million gain tied to the sale of the Craftsman brand.

Revenue tumbled more than 30 percent to $2.89 billion, with store closings already underway contributing to almost two thirds of the decline.

Sales at stores open at least a year, a key gauge of a retailer’s health, tumbled 11.9 percent. Comparable-stores sales slid 9.5 percent at Kmart stores, and 13.4 percent at Sears.

The company, which also operates Kmart stores, closed the Kmart in Austintown and in January and the last remaining Kmart in Trumbull County, the Super Kmart on state Route 46, in April.