Arduino Yun's sample "Bridge" code not working
I ended up doing two things. First I got a replacement hardware. That made the bridge code start working.

And I also changed the port from /dev/tty.usbmodem1431 to /dev/cu.usbmodem1431. As shown in the picture below. That fixed the issue with IDE getting stuck at "Uploading...".

Not sure if this fix will last.