The Titanic resurfaces in its extraordinary way this week with TV specials timed to the 100th anniversary of its sinking this month.

Deep-sea explorer Bob Ballard, who in 1985 found the luxury liner’s dismembered corpse strewn across acres of the North Atlantic’s floor, brings one of the best for those intrigued by the disaster in “Save the Titanic” (10 p.m. Monday, National Geographic Channel).

Ballard is perhaps the foremost advocate for protecting the wreck, which has become a target for salvagers and even deep-sea tourists. On his first expedition to the wreck 27 years ago, he found the ship’s crow’s nest — from which lookout Frederick Fleet first sighted the outline of doom and shrieked to the bridge, “Iceberg right ahead!” — still high above the deck.

Now mysteriously missing, the crow’s nest was knocked off into a cargo hold, he believes, by a rogue Russian submarine that visits the ship’s grave with passengers who pay $60,000 for the trip.

As more deep-sea vehicles are developed, the ship will be increasingly looted, he believes. Ballard has been vocal about preserving the wreck as a memorial to those who built the ship and died with it, a stance that has put him at odds with groups like RMS Titanic, which exhibits artifacts it plucked from the bottom in a Las Vegas casino.

He also visits Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the ship was built and examines the original plans for the liner. He interviews descendants of the “Guarantee Group” — nine men who helped construct the Titanic and who were picked to represent Belfast’s shipbuilders on the maiden voyage. All perished.

“I thought I knew everything there was to know about the Titanic, then I learned about the Guarantee Group,” Ballard said in an interview. “They never found their bodies. Their families have been silent for 100 years. It was an honor to tell their stories.”

Tiny bacteria are feasting on Titanic’s iron bones, converting them to stalactite-like formations of rust. Ballard believes the ship is dying again, imperiled by the forces of nature and increasing pressure from human greed.

It deserves better, he reminds us, than to become a scrap yard picked over by scavengers. “You don’t go to Gettysburg with a shovel,” he said. “You don’t come into the cemetery and dig and take the jewelry off the bodies.”

Former child star faces charge of DUI

LOS ANGELES — Authorities say actress Amanda Bynes has been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence after she grazed a sheriff’s patrol car.

Bynes, 26, was arrested around 3 a.m. Friday in West Hollywood.

The Los Angeles County sheriff’s department said that Bynes attempted to pass a patrol car making a right turn when she hit it. Deputies who arrested her suspect she was drunk at the time.

Deputies said no one was injured.

Bynes is being held on $5,000 bail. Her publicist, Melissa Raubvogel, did not immediately return a call and an email from The Associated Press.

The actress appeared in the 2010 film “Easy A” and the Nickelodeon series “What I Like About You.”

Lauer voices his loyalty to ‘Today’

LOS ANGELES — Matt Lauer is sticking with NBC’s “Today,” ending speculation that the No. 1 morning show might have to face ABC’s rising “Good Morning America” without him.

Lauer has signed a long-term contract to remain as co-host of the show, a long-anticipated deal that NBC announced Thursday night but Lauer made public Friday morning.

“This is my family,” he said on the air as the “Today” crew and co-anchors burst into applause.

“Truth be told,” he joked, “I was developing an idea for a new show, where viewers could tune in every morning and see someone they know lose a little more of his hair every single day right in front of their eyes. But then I thought, I could just stay here and do that.”

Although “Today” is on a historic winning streak in the ratings, “Good Morning America” has been gaining ground.