Photoshop V25.9 Crashing Upon Attempting to Use Image Brightness

After updating today (06-05-2024) to V25.9 for Photoshop, all documents crash when attempting to access Image, Adjustments, then Brightness/Contrast. An eye dropper appears from which you cannot get out off. All menu options are grayed out, and you cannot escape, Ctrl-Z, switch or turn off layers, or any other key combination, to get things back to normal. Interstinglly, some options are still available (like switching over to "Character" or "Pharagraphs" properties panes). We've rebooted, tried older files, tried with brand new ones, and the problems persists regardless. Help!

We see that this issue surfaced some years ago and was corrected in an update release - see:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/brightness-contrast-becomes-unresponsive-requires-force-quit/m-p/11150059