Here are the business stories making the headlines across Scotland and the UK this morning.
Angela Rayner weighs leadership challenge after local elections
Angela Rayner is weighing up mounting a direct challenge to Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership after next week’s local elections, as supporters of the former deputy prime minister urge her to openly call for the prime minister to quit.
Allies believe Rayner needs to move quickly to head off a rival campaign by Wes Streeting, the health secretary, who is widely seen as the frontrunner among cabinet ministers positioning themselves for the top job.
They said any delay would allow Streeting more time to lock in support among Labour MPs, and Rayner should be ready to act the moment HM Revenue & Customs concludes an investigation into her tax affairs.
Ready more in The Times.
Growing demand for cloud services helps Amazon beat expectations
Growing demand for Amazon’s cloud computing business helped it to beat expectations in the first quarter, a sign that its huge investments in the infrastructure underpinning artificial intelligence may be bearing fruit.
Revenue across the group rose to $181.5 billion in the first three months of the year, up from $155.7 billion last year and exceeding analysts’ expectations. Net income increased to $30.3 billion, up 77 per cent from $17.1 billion in the first quarter of last year.
Andy Jassy, president and chief executive of Amazon, said: “We’re making customers’ lives easier and better every day across all our businesses, and their response is driving significant growth.”
Get the full story in The Times.
Inverness and the north could be hit by ‘catastrophic’ energy job losses in Reform plans
Inverness and the north would be hit harder than anywhere else in the UK if Reform was in power to roll-back support for greener industries, a damning new report warns.
Analysis seen by The P&J suggests the region would be disproportionately hit among a wider loss of half a million jobs across Britain in three years.
Industries such as offshore wind and jobs linked to the Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport could be most vulnerable, campaigners say.
Click here to read the full P&J exclusive.
Meta shares slide as plan to spend billions more on AI spooks investors
Meta took the brunt of investor concerns on Wednesday over how the biggest US tech firms are spending massive sums on artificial intelligence (AI).
Shares in the company, which owns Facebook and Instagram, dropped 7% in extended trading, after saying it would spend billions more on AI projects than it had initially planned.
Meta, Google-owner Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon all reported their quarterly earnings at the same time. But the latter three companies fared better with investors as they showed how their own huge AI investments were starting to pay off.
Miller and Carter Aberdeen Riverside to open this week after £1.6m transformation
Miller and Carter is set to open its second Aberdeen location, splashing £1.6 million on a complete refurbishment.
The new venue on Great Southern Road will open on Friday May 1.
Owned by UK hospitality company Mitchells and Butlers, the steakhouse chain took over the former Harvester restaurant last year.
Read more in The Press and Journal.