$re = '/[^ 0-9a-zA-Z](?!(?<=\d\.)\d)/m';
$str = 'What? The Census Says It’s Counted 99.9 Percent of Households. Don’t Be Fooled.';
$subst = "";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php