import unicodedata


def remove_accents(s):
    """remove accents from a piece of text.

    Examples:
        >>> _s = 'âbĉ'
        >>> remove_accents(_s)
        'abc'
    """
    s = unicodedata.normalize('NFD', s)
    output = []
    for c in s:
        if unicodedata.category(c) == 'Mn':
            continue
        output.append(c)
    return ''.join(output)