$1.8 billion Westfield in San Francisco sold at staggering loss

A once-thriving shopping centre in a crime-ridden major city has been auctioned off for a fraction of its formerly billion-dollar value.

Welcome to our coverage of US politics from Friday, Australia time. This blog is no longer live.

The US shutdown is over after 43 days.

Late on Wednesday evening, US time (Thursday afternoon AEDT), Donald Trump signed off on a new budget, officially starting the wheels of government turning again.

Americans will be hoping the nation’s air traffic controllers can come back to work fast enough to prevent Thanksgiving holidays – the biggest of the year in the US – from being disrupted.

But the opening of government has brought unwanted focus back onto the files of Jeffrey Epstein.

There continues to be no evidence that Mr Trump did anything illegal or untoward connected to Epstein – but the fact that he keeps getting linked to the disgraced financier could be damaging.

In a new trove of emails released by a congressional committee, Epstein reportedly said he knew how “dirty Donald is”, and called the now-President both “dangerous” and “dumb”.

And a once-thriving shopping centre in the heart of San Francisco has been auctioned off for a fraction of its formerly billion-dollar value.

The San Francisco Centre Mall, formerly known as the Westfield Emporium, was sold earlier this week to lenders Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase for just $US133 million ($203.7 million). Nearly a decade ago, it was valued at $US1.2 billion ($1.8 billion).

Read on for more updates from Friday.

Originally published as $1.8 billion Westfield in San Francisco sold at staggering loss