Toyota Motor agreed Wednesday to pay more than $1 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit related to issues of unintended acceleration in its vehicles, reports the Los Angeles Times, which published an award-winning series on the problem in 2009. The Christian Science Monitor reports that despite massive safety-related recalls and last year’s Japanese earthquake and tsunami that interrupted production, the automaker will finish 2012 with a record 9.7 million in vehicle sales and expects to do even better next year.