import re


def simplify(text):
    """Given text scraped from a website, simplify the text by removing unnecessary whitespace and bullets."""
    # format it nicely: encode it, removing special symbols
    data = text.encode('ascii', 'ignore').decode("utf-8")
    # format it nicely: replace multiple spaces with just one
    data = re.sub(' +', ' ', data)
    # format it nicely: replace multiple new lines with just one
    #data = re.sub('(\r?\n *)+', '\n', data)
    data = data.replace("\r", "")
    data = data.replace("\n", "")
    data = data.replace("\t", "")
    # format it nicely: replace bullet with *
    #data = re.sub(u'\u2022', '* ', data)
    # format it nicely: replace registered symbol with (R)
    #data = re.sub(u'\xae', ' (R) ', data)
    # format it nicely: remove trailing spaces
    data = data.strip()

    return data