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Michael Sam attends the University of Missouri. He is one of the best American Football defensive players in the college system. He also happens to be gay.

Last week, after completing his college football career, he came out as gay and in the likely event he is picked for an NFL team in the draft, that would make him unique in the league. 

However, just a matter of days later, anonymous NFL representatives were telling Sports Illustrated that his announcement would likely harm his prospects in the NFL.

After hearing this news, Dallas TV sports newsman Dale Hansen felt he had to get something off his chest. The result below is quite simply brilliant.

The amazing video footage below was shot from the helmets of five skydivers. It was supposed to capture their triumphant and serene fall from a plane 12,000 feet above the ground.

Instead it caught a mid-air crash between the two planes carrying them, one of which burst into flames. The skydivers are thrown from the plane, though miraculously they all survived unharmed. 

Watch the report from NBC below:

Europe's biggest street festival took place in west London over the weekend, as more than a million people joined the party at Notting Hill Carnival. 

Usually the revellers will try to keep their distance from the huge numbers of police, but this year, amongst all the normal stories of arrests, a more feel-good video has emerged of police officers having a dance off with members of the public.

Notting Hill Carnival is an annual street party in its 49th year celebrating Caribbean culture, food, music and dance. Due to the huge numbers of people, the party atmosphere and the large amounts of alcohol and drugs knocking around, there were 6,000 police at each day of the event.

Although there were 279 arrests over the two days, there was no real violence and a police statement read that the festival "went very well" and crime was down on previous years. Along side this, an officer called PC Armstrong posted a link on Twitter to the video below with the caption: 'good community relations in my opinion'.

History was made yesterday as Austrian adventurer Felix Baumgartner jumped from a greater height and reached faster speeds than any other human ever has before. In a specially made helium balloon he rose to a height of 39km, on the edge of space, before jumping off.

The stunt was the culmination of seven years work and had already been put off several times in the past week after adverse weather conditions. Even when Baumgartner finally did get the chance to get off the ground the mission didn't go completely smoothly.

As the balloon made its slow ascent higher and higher above New Mexico the tension was palpable. Finally, after over two hours and at 128,100 foot above sea level, it reached its peak and Baumgartner was led through a number of pre-jump checks. It was only then that he discovered that a heater in his helmet wasn't working and his visor kept steaming up. Despite emphasising "this is very serious" over his radio, the team as a whole decided to continue with the jump.

Regular tornados are terrifying enough, but have you ever heard of one made of fire!? Fire whirls, as they are known, are one of nature's rarest sights but luckily, a filmmaker was on hand to tape one in Australia this week.

Chris Tangey was out in Alice Springs looking for locations for his latest movie when he was met by a 30-metre high tower of swirling flames. Fortunately, he was at a safe enough distance to stay out of harm's way and be able to capture the stunning spectacle on camera. He described the experience:

"I was about 300-metres away and there was no wind but the tornado sounded like a fighter jet. My jaw just dropped. I've been shooting in the outback for 23 years and I have never seen anything like it. We've heard about them but they're never seen. It's a once in ten lifetimes experience."

These rare events occur when a column of warm, rising air either causes or comes in to contact with a fire on the ground. The rising, swirling air then sucks up the fire, with spectacular and sometimes devastating results. Unsurprisingly they can be very dangerous if they come into contact with people or buildings, and one name for them is simply ‘fire devils'. Although they usually only last for a couple of minutes, amazingly this one went on for more than 40 minutes.