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Like clockwork, leap years roll around every four years. But many companies are never quite prepared for it, with every Feb. 29 marred by glitches and malfunctions.Computers have shut down, satellite navigation devices have failed and airport conveyor belts have refused to move luggage onto planes. This year, dozens of gas stations across New Zealand malfunctioned on Thursday, with car and truck drivers reporting problems filling up in the early hours of the morning.“Motorists have been turning up and unable to get fuel,” said Julien Leys, a spokesman for Gull New Zealand, one of the companies whose gas pumps malfunctioned. “It’s been incredibly frustrating for our customers.”Drivers were unable to pay for their fuel because the software used by payment terminals at gas pumps “couldn’t cal...

The hiking trail to Middleham Falls on the Caribbean island of Dominica is all wet leaves, slippery black stones and steps formed by tree roots. It could be a path in Middle-earth, shrouded, shadowy and green, fit for hobbits and fairies. Where sunlight pierced the canopy, rainbows formed in the mist, almost close enough to poke. Here and there, hummingbirds drew nectar from huge blossoms.The goal on that January day: a 200-foot forest cascade filling and refilling little pools on the valley floor, where I could — as one does in the secret hot pools and isolated waterfalls of Dominica — shed my clothes, slip into water and commune with the hummingbirds like a fairy queen.Dominica, 29 miles long and, at its widest, 16 miles across, is one of the wildest Caribbean islands. A former British c...